1985 Penguin Books. Translated from the German by John E Woods. Spoiler Alerts. The Perfume book cover. A Beer & Books Book Club Read – Vinyl Tap, Preston Monthly Book Club. 12th February 2026. Few books can claim to be truly unique, but this may be one of the few to qualify. In creative writing classes, a frequent exercise is telling a story using all five senses, sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Most book writers will make occasional reference to the latter three but c

If you like my writings and you would like to see more, you can help fund my activity with a modest donation or two to my new Buymeacoffee Donations Page. Not expecting to gain much from this but every penny counts with my research taking me all round the UK now. https://buymeacoffee.com/arthurchappell I would recommend this site to other writers and creatives too. It feels like begging just setting up such a site, but it is becoming an industry standard now. Many internet

That the Bible starts with ‘In the beginning’ is quite apt to this complete Bible study, line by line, verse by verse, book by book, including the Apocrypha study is really my second beginning as I had already written a vast chunk of my attempt to take the Bible apart line by line for pages on the now discontinued web site hosting pages at Bubblews. The Bible Some of my pages survive, but others were never kept, copied or recovered. I thought of filling in the gaps in my find

Beers I enjoyed in December 2025 Ridge Brewing Challenger Pale Ale I actually had more than just these listed ales but others were all beers I have drunk before and this list is for those supped for the first time. X7 Anarchy – Rum & Raisin Porter 4.5% **** Surprisingly rich, decent keg porter, over chilled at the bar where I quaffed it and a little pricy for a session ale strength tipple. Keg Ale – The Adelphi - Ashton, Preston. Farmhouse – Mardy Porter 5% ***** a fine tr

Spoilers * This could have been called ‘Niece of Frankenstein’ as that is essentially who Mary (not Shelley) is. Sadly there is no true monster in the book. Mary, aided and thwarted by her debt saddled husband, and his evil creditor, aims to be a scientist in a World dominated by men. (Many of the leading scientists of the day are involved, notably Richard Owen, the man who first used the word dinosaurs. Charles Darwin briefly appears though only after his voyage on The Beagl

Spoilers The first book read for the new Vinyl Tap pub’s book club group and an interesting, quite readable if flawed choice. Book Cover - Matt Haig - The Midnight Library A multiverse series of seemingly infinite second chances for a young woman who has attempted to commit suicide, with influences from It’s A Wonderful Life, Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day. After a cascade flow of things going wrong, peaking with the death of her cat, Voltaire, Nora Seed commits suic

The highs and lows of 205 for me were many. Overall it was a very good year. I started off January 25 rather unwell, with the tail end of the stoma(ch) upset and vomiting that had wiped out my Xmas and new year activities for 24. My mid-month I felt fine again. My 2025 Diary There were various check-up trips to the doctors and a throat camera scan, to check my guts out which proved things were OK. My friend Elaine had to come with me as I was not supposed to be alone in

Rugby Ground - Wigan, Manchester I have no interest in physical, athletic sport. I’ve been accused of being ‘gay’ for declaring that I neither support (Manchester) City or United. The value of healthy exercise aside, sport is generally over-concerned with winning, and beating the opposition. That means it automatically relegates oppositional human beings to the status of losers, also-rans, and second raters. Business capitalism works on the same principle. Competition makes

The Sea Spoilers The preceding two parter jumped the shark - the finale jumped down its throat and out through it’s bum. Much unexplained and the remainder made no sense. We never saw the Big Fish do anything. Barclay & Salt get very little time together. Kate wanders round sad, makes empty threats to the conspirators and threatens to shoot a guy for littering. Earlier in the episode she quite coldly blackmails her therapist into prescribing her stronger anti-d

Doctor Who TARDIS - FAB Cafe, Manchester Spoilers After quite a strong thought provoking epic scaled opening pair of episodes, the Doctor Who Spin Off has rapidly gone off the deep end for the third and fourth parts of the five part series. I was already thinking that the bromance between Barclay & Salt was going to get more overtly romantic as they went for a ‘The Sound Of Water/Splash’ relationship of man and amphibious reptile in love twist, though I thought that would c

Inn Sign Society Flyer Since around 2012, I have been an avid collector of inn sign photos, mostly taken by me. The following FAQ summarises what’s involved, by responding to questions I get asked about my hobby. 1/. What Is a pub sign? An advert that tells people that a property sells ales, wines and/or spirits for consumption on the premises. They serve the same purpose as shop logos, barber’s poles, the MacDonald’s Golden Arches, etc but as many pubs operate independe

Spoilers. Doctor Who Tardis - Manchester Town Hall Episodes 1 & 2 of 5. Many of us nowadays are conscientiously not chucking any plastic directly into the waterways. It's the industrialists and big polluters and water purification companies who do most of the damage. They are not going to be persuaded by an idealistic TV POV. They know but don't care. It gets like the South Park 'Drugs are bad kids, Okay....' lines. The Sea Devils going as far as to try to ban any contact wi

Arthur has been an English Civil War Re-enactor, and a radio presenter, a dramatist, and various fancy dress characters. Arthur is a perfor