Bristol City Museum

Dormouse Time-Traveller

On a rainy day – on any day, come to that, other than Mondays – Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery is the gift that goes on giving. Unlike a lot of municipal and national museums, its management have not decided that a collection of stuffed animals is a regrettable remnant of an unenlightened past, one where "naturalist" was synonymous with "sharpshooter". Even the Natural History Museum in London has seen fit to put apologetic notes in its cabinets, explaining that the ears are falling off the specimens because no-one these days would even think of bagging a replacement super-rare critter just so school-parties of ten-year-olds can stare into its unforgiving glass eyes.

Which is right and fair enough, but – as with so many bits of heritage loot and bric-a-brac, from statues of Cecil Rhodes to shrunken heads – the apologetic, exculpatory note seems unnecessarily wimpy to me. Yep, we done that! Nope, we ain't gonna do it again! Though we do reserve the right to play around with the bits and pieces we've still got in an entertaining and instructive way...

Birds on a Twig on a Wire

"Mr. Chopping, Taxidermist", by John Kinnersley Kirby