Vintage View: A glass-eyed view of antique taxidermy

Manly knee-slaps rock the polite simmer of exchange in the living-room....“I nailed that one coming around a corner!”

I discreetly rake sherds of exploded muffin back to my mouth while meeting the glassy stare of a roe deer. Its elegant head, neck and shoulder are paralysed in a comical look to the left and high up on the anaglyptic wallpaper.

I put down my trembling teacup with an icy ‘ting’ atop the snowy diorama of a fox seizing a rabbit from the Nevada sagebrush — entombed forever by the all-glass coffee table.