ARE YOU GOING TO SAN FRANCISCO?

For any lovers of San Francisco, this is the book for you. Author and resident Rebecca Solnit has created an atlas charting not only the geography of this 7 mile urban space, but a social, political and cultural history. A loving, minute exploration of the bay area with endless discoveries, from blues clubs to butterfly habitats. There are also 22 coloured maps, each by a different artist, which illustrate the book perfectly. 

DO YOU LOVE ME, NOW THAT I CAN DANCE?

Because it's been a bit of an art week, I'd like to bring your attention to MONPA, or the Museum of Non-Primate Art. The organisation has got some really great stuff this season that is definitely competing on an international level and I'd like to bring them some much-needed publicity. Their three current online collections are the thought-provoking Why Cats Paint, the emotive Dancing with Cats and the expressionist Bird Art. The purpose of the museum, as they define it, is to "preserve the movements, marks and sounds of non-primate species and consider them, without prejudice, as modes of aesthetic communication, in the hope of gaining new insights into our world." I can honestly say that this work has given me some new insights into our world. If you'd like something to keep forever (and who wouldn't?), what better than a powerful photographic collection that accompanies the exhibition from Heather Busch and Burton Silver.

BOXER TURNS BIRDMAN

Nicknamed the "Baddest Man on the Planet", once famous for biting off a man's ear and a convicted rapist, Mike Tyson has launched a new reality show where he races pigeons. The Social Network told us it's better to be convicted of necrophilia than animal cruelty, but obviously it works the other way round too: if your nice to animals it doesn't matter what your convicted of. What's next? O. J. Simpson timing guinea pigs on treadmills? It's not all roses for Tyson, though, because PETA aren't happy. They've issued a statement saying "if Mike Tyson truly loved birds, he would fight for their protection - not force them into a 'race' that tears them away from their families." I'm not sure what their use of quotation marks around the word race is meant to mean, but I think we can agree that the "Baddest Man on the Planet" has a murky relationship with birds.

ALIVE ALIVE-O

East 15, a trendy New York sushi restaurant, seems to be taking dining to a very nasty level. Top on their menu of specialities is live lobster.

ART ATTACK

This week is New York's Armory Show and I wanted to share with you some of the highlights.  Gilbert & George had laid out postcards in the shape of the urethra sign (who knew there was a sign and I'm not sure which sign language it belongs to), my favourite was a postcard explaining the meaning of douche. There were a series of photographs making everybody smile of a number of different chairs, some wicker, some plastic, some lined, some holed, and next to each one was a photograph of a woman's naked bottom with the imprint of the chair on her butt cheeks. Finally, New York photographer Lori Nix painstakingly builds tiny models of imaginary places and photographs them to produce these absorbing, strangely beautiful images.

AND WHAT BIG KITCHEN UTENSILS YOU HAVE GRANDMA!

Illustrator Jean-Francois Martin and cookery journalist Esterelle Payany have published this quirky little cookbook with recipes inspired by fictional villains. Unlike a lot of small, stocking-filler type books, this is funny, well-written and the illustrations are beautiful. The Big Bad Wolf teaches you how to make Pigs in Blankets, Brutus makes a Caesar salad and Hannibal Lector shares his recipe for sweetbreads with sherry.

BREAST MILK ICE CREAM FANS DENIED FIX

I'm gutted to hear that Covent Garden's speciality ice cream shop, Icecreamist, has had to  withdraw one of its newest and best-selling products. The jugs, I mean tubs of Baby Gaga, alternatively known as breast milk ice cream, have been confiscated by local authorities when some concerned customers complained that it was illegal to sell food products made from bodily fluids. Can't wait to see what's next on their list...