Ronald Searle is 90 this week and to celebrate, the Chris Beetles gallery in St James's in London is showing an exhibition of his work, from rum adverts to Molesworth. Go if you can: you can only really see the beautiful intricacy of his illustrations when they're full size.

If you want to see more, there's another exhibition at the Cartoon Museum until July.

Popular Science has put its 137-year archive online (found via BibliOdyssey), which means hours of harmless fun searching for old pictures of space travel for us all. This February 1920 edition features some very of-their-time issues:

But what I'm really fascinated by, among all the cures for bow-leggedness and stammers, are the many ads for money-making schemes, which have some excellent career suggestions:

You can also find Big Profits in Vulcanizing, and Get Bigger Pay through Electricity. Most promising of all is The Police Key, which "opens almost everything". "Every householder should have one", they innocently suggest.

A fascinating episode of Radiolab this week, focusing on the strange and sad story of Lucy the chimpanzee, who was brought up by psychotherapist Maurice Temerlin (shown above) in an experimental attempt to see how human she could become. Some of the moments where the human/animal boundary gets very fuzzy in this programme will make your hair stand on end - particularly the bits dealing with Lucy's, er, interest in pictures of naked human males.

Listen to the end to get an update from the Great Ape Trust, where the attempts to teach the apes language seem to have taken a surprising turn: a researcher insists that one of the bonobos has started actually speaking in gruff English. Although his colleague sounds a little less convinced. One thing is certain: if a bonobo threatens to bite you if you don't do what he says, you'd better listen.

According to the Venerable Bede, February, or Solmonath, was the "month of cakes" for the Anglo-Saxons, when they offered cake to their gods.

Some people seem to translate it as Mud Month or something to do with sprouting cabbages but we won't worry about that.

So, off we go - a month of cakes, starting now. Why not start by baking this Betty Crocker Colorvision cake from the Fifties, above, which seems to be made of spam.

January. Back to work, sleet and snow, Christmas trees are rotting on the kerb. It's miserable - but this is because, in the UK at least, the festivals are so badly managed. Everything happens in autumn, then you're left with nothing but a few pancakes to look forward to between now and Easter. Unless you really enjoy giving things up for Lent.

The answer is simple: create more. Or rather, because creating things from scratch is hard work and for mugs, dig up some obscure forgotten ones or steal them from elsewhere.

I suggest we start with tomorrow, which is apparently known in parts of Ireland as Women's Christmas. Women have parties or go out to celebrate with their sisters, aunts etc, while men stay at home and do all the housework. And children give their female relatives presents. Ideal! Let the celebrations begin.

Happy Christmas to all.

And don't worry if your holidays turn out to be a bit short on peculiar fun: you can alway head for the Fens in January, for the Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival, where they celebrate the day after Plough Monday by taking a haystack for a walk.

Suggestion: please can all novels from now on have floor plans. How am I meant to get a clear idea of the story if I don't even know where the hell the kitchen is in relation to the library? Plus it saves a lot of time on boring descriptions.

I mean, it was good enough for the Golden Age of Detection. I particularly like these maps, above and below, in The Pit Prop Syndicate by Freeman Wills Crofts. Don't ask me why I'm reading it because I don't know. But if you like a novel where a good chunk of the action is the two heroes taking it in turns to sit in a barrel to watch pit props being smuggled, then this is for you. At least I know where the Syndicate's depot is in relation to Ackroyd and Holt's.

Why should I imagine it? It's your book, you imagine it. Naturally Len Howard knows the importance of a plan in Birds as Individuals:

And don't forget to include an accurate diagram of any chessboard, bridge hand or bell-ringing chart mentioned:

1. Why birds stare at humans?

Because they do things like this:

2. How do marshes get fed?

Like this:

3. How to achieve best wardrobe?

Make everything bigger:

4. Who fed the birds on saturday nite?

He did (is that an egg?):

4. Knit new inoaktive?

I'm not familiar with an inoaktive: if, as I imagine, it's something like this, then please don't make any more:

And for the person who just wanted "fashion sternly":

The best thing on in London at the moment is Exhibition #1 at the Museum of Everything in Primrose Hill, James Brett's collection of "non-traditional art" tucked away in the ramshackle setting of an old dairy. All the work is presented with respect for its own merits, avoiding the usual dangers of an outsider-art freakshow ("Hey! Look at the crazy man's house!") Magnifying glasses hang in the main hall so you can appreciate Guo Fengyi's drawings of beings that seem to be made of swirling hair or Augustin Lesage's tiny dots - incredibly painstaking detail being a common feature. Paintings inspired by religious visions such as those of Sister Gertrude Morgan get their own little chapel, and Henry Darger's pictures of girls rescued from a storm by children with wings and horns are laid out in sequence so you can follow the story. Plus tea and cakes at the end. It's supposed to finish in December so go soon.

My recently bought copy of Tallulah Bankhead's autobiography (which looks as if it's still in print) turns out to be an ideal winter evening read. She describes her notoriously rackety life without remorse: "Let's face it, my dears, I have been tight as a tick! Fried as a mink! Stiff as a goat!" "I've rejoiced in considerable dalliance, and have no regrets... I found no surprises in the Kinsey Report."

It's all done in style - at least in Tallulah's version of events, most of which sounds completely made-up, but probably isn't: "It's true I once pinwheeled along Piccadilly, but I was only answering a taunt of my companion - Prince Nicholas of Roumania. You know those Roumanian princes! Not all of them are on key." At one point, she suffers from some kind of flesh-eating virus that has doctors contemplating cutting off her upper lip to stop the infection reaching her brain, and takes the opportunity to adopt "one of those half-masks which make Moorish and Turkish maidens so provocative".

She had a lion cub called Winston Churchill, and went on the wagon to show solidarity with the British after Dunkirk (although Robert Lewis said she replaced alcohol with 'sniffing odd capsules that her sister Eugenia insisted were used to revive horses that slipped and fell on the ice').

Since she's writing in 1953, some areas are skated over - she never hints at the rumours of her affairs with famous women from Greta Garbo to Billie Holiday, although she does tackle head on the 1920s scandal about her corrupting minors at Eton (perhaps because it pretty obviously wasn't true, in spite of being investigated by MI5).

When she gives evidence against a secretary who's embezzled from her, Time magazine reported that onlookers "fully expected Miss Bankhead to pull out a small, pearl-handed revolver from her handbag and shoot both defendant and her counsel."

She didn't make many films, preferring the stage. Strangely her last role was as a teetotal religious zealot in a Hammer horror film - "the ultimate in stabbing suspense":

A few sounds from a night excursion into the depths of the wood. There is one track through these woods, which are pitch black at night, miles from anywhere, with nothing around but trees, stars and mysterious rustling creatures.

So you may have to listen on headphones to catch this first one, because the whole point of the Norfolk woods is that they are very quiet, apart from the distant hooting of owls.

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And your own footsteps.

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In the middle of the wood is a single, sinister cottage.

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Admittedly made slightly less sinister here by its occupant, my niece's rabbit Ning.

Fed by Birds is three today! Please don't get too rowdy in your celebrations: think of our neighbours.

For the benefit of new readers, here is a summary of the plot to date:

The sinister truth about bird geniuses and the secret life of priests was revealed.

Long sleeves posed a deadly threat, but the English spirit won through.

Seemingly hopeless quests were resolved.

We were haunted by the sounds of wolves, Cornwall and
Brighton Pier.

Times were hard, but we learnt to forage for luxury, divine the future and automate the creative process.

Plus, we met the Gwolphs of Saturn, listened to the ravings of a robot and finally got our speedle.

Now, read on...

Dreaming = free and fun. Done correctly, it can fill those apparently useless sleeping hours with adventure. For the benefit of mankind, we have tested the following notorious dream-causing foods, to see which has the most spectacular results:

1. Cheese

This is probably the most famously dream-inducing food in popular myth. To test this thoroughly, we ate a large amount of Gorgonzola pizza shortly before bedtime.

Result: Tedious dreams which are mostly administrative - having a lot of visitors turn up without enough beds, people whose invitations I haven't replied to, packing suitcases for a plane that's about to leave, etc.

Conclusion: Quantity, but not quality.

2. Chocolate

Eating chocolate before bed seems to be widely associated with having bad dreams.

Sounds like a myth invented by unscrupulous, tooth-protecting parents. Sceptical, the subject ingested a combination of "double chocolate" mousse, hot chocolate, and a few truffles to be on the safe side.

Result: Surprisingly, that parental threat turns out to be completely true. An almost text-book nightmare follows: a figure suddenly sits up in the next bed, in the style of Whistle and I'll Come to You, and says, "I am The Undertaker." It's all downhill from there.

Conclusion: Listen to your mother.

3. Chilli

Spicy food is often blamed for vivid dreams. We ate at a Sichuan restaurant, where all the food is exceptionally fiery.

Result: A cascade of dreams. I am at a banquet wearing a gaberdine mac which I realise will infuriate the king. I am being chased so turn into a bird, and fly over a pub where I overhear the owners discussing the secret recipe for their special burgers (they use coconut). My fortune is made! And so on.

On the minus side, my fellow guinea pig complains that he's spent the whole night fighting imaginary gatecrashers at a student party.

Conclusion: Impressive, but may require a lie-in afterwards.

4. Lobster

There's a reason why the surrealists loved lobsters: they and other shellfish have long been thought to cause wild dreams.

A recent trip to the French seaside gave us the opportunity to test this out.

Result: A night packed with entertainment and strangeness. Robots made of blue-and-white patterned porcelain; people playing boules on a dark river with candles in paper boats; using a saw like this:

Conclusion: Deluxe dreaming. Highly recommended.

The best thing about London is that, even if you've lived there nearly your whole life, if you start off walking down obscure backstreets you are guaranteed to come across strange and interesting stuff you have never seen before. Wandering down tiny streets in Westminster, for instance, I went past this shop supplying chasubles and albs to the clergy, with window displays I found fascinating.

What is an alb, anyway? They're quite expensive. And being a godless heathen I had no idea communion wine was non-alcoholic. What a swizz.

Then I turned a corner and came on a well-stocked Oxfam bookshop, where I found what I can tell already is going to be an excellent read:

First page: "I have milked a mammoth [what?]... and christened an electric rabbit with a jeroboam of Lanson 1912... I won five pounds from Lord Birkenhead when he bet that Cleopatra was a brunette."

The BBC has just put up a selection of recordings of suffragettes from its archives. Many of these were interviews in the Fifties and Sixties for programmes such as Woman's Hour, which ran a piece on the collection today. Dame Ethel Smyth remembers a window-smashing campaign with great relish: "Mrs Pankhurst was not a cricketer," she observes ruefully, of the suffragette leader missing the window of number 10. Schoolgirl Winifred Starbuck talks about pupils running wild in support of an imprisoned teacher. Many describe the horrors of their treatment in Holloway: one recalls the constant "awful sound of the choking of women" as they were forcibly fed.

Most fascinating is dancer Lilian Lenton (below): "My speciality was escapes." She was known as the tiny Pimpernel for her frequent dodging of the police who were set to watch her: her schemes included dressing up as an errand boy, and one very elaborate plot involving the scattering of 50 veiled accomplices. She also seems to have been a keen arsonist.

(Radio Times image from here)