Strange Stains and Mysterious Smells is Quentin Cottington's journal of faery research by Terry Jones and Brian Froud. A follow up to
Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book.
The book begins by explaining that
Terry Jones and Brian Froud, in a period of unemployment, had taken up flower arranging at the Institute for the Criminally
Insane and chanced upon a tin box with Quentin's journals and two pieces of equipment buried behind the institute. The equipment consisted of a "Psychic Image Nebulising Generator" and his "Primary Odor Nasalising Gasificator" that reveal the true nature of
stains and
smells and allows one to see everyday spots, stains and smells in their
corporeal existence.