Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is often described as a great tragic love story, yet I found it to be something far colder and more unsettling. It is not a romance in any conventional sense. There is no character to admire, no moral centre to steady the reader, and little opportunity to invest in the early innocence of Catherine and Heathcliff before t…

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The county wants to take control of Lahaina. They’re currently using permit denial as leverage to force a sale. Their main focus is the commercial area on Front Street.

Property owners defeated the attempted land-grab bill (SB 3381) in 2025. However, it is expected to be reintroduced this year, and I suspect the state and county will be far more subtle a…

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Think of Anthony Bourdain as a probable neighbour of some residents in Chiang Mai. Yes—still very much alive. Somehow he has secured a permanent right of abode, a kind of unofficial sanctuary, as though the Thai authorities run a discreet witness-protection scheme for those who have lifted the veil on human trafficking. And so here he is: a figure half-…

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It happened one clear afternoon on Rue de Buci, that short street in the 6th arrondissement which feels perpetually staged for film. The light, the market chatter, the waiters in their white shirts -- everything is mise en scene, as though Paris itself expects to be watched.

I had just turned the corner when a well-dressed woman in her sixties came towar…

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On the road between Cortez and Moab, in a landscape powdered with dust and revelation, I pulled in at a Maverik station to fill the tank and obtain two necessities: a large coffee and a packet of BonFire Beef Jerky, which, in that particular moment, struck me as both essential and transcendent.

Inside, the store buzzed with its usual symphony: humming re…

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It began with shorts. Two pair, if you must know—tan, modestly pleated, well-cut. I had been in the men’s department at Macy’s for just under an hour, browsing with the restrained purpose of the British abroad, when I made my selections. A small victory. The kind worth rewarding with a neat single malt, if one could find such things in the modern jungle…

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La maline (For those who prefer the original French)

Dans la salle à manger brune, que parfumait
Une odeur de vernis et de fruits, à mon aise 
Je ramassais un plat de je ne sais quel met 
Belge, et je m’épatais dans mon immense chaise.

En mangeant, j’écoutais l’horloge, — heureux et coi.
La cuisine s’ouvrit avec une bouffée
—Et la servante vint, je n…

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Epigraph

“The traveller’s virtue is exactness; the pilgrim’s, persistence. One must choose daily which to be.” — T. E. Lawrence, field notebook, 1908

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Part I — The Shepherdess of Time

(June, 1930 — or thereabouts)

It was Lord Thornton’s idea, of course. Known to us as “Ruffles,” he announced one morning that he required a first-class Border Collie — blue-ribbon pedigree, the sort of creature that could fetch the newspaper and then lecture on Plato if pressed. And he knew precisely where such paragons we…

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The Spotter’s Shack

By Duffy Whitmore

Chapter I – Rosehip in the Moonlight

We made landfall at dusk, though landfall is rather too grand a term for our soft-nosed approach to a coral-wrapped crescent of tropical indolence. The Rosehip—Lord Thornton’s teak yacht, polished to a sullen gleam and as stubbornly British as a buttered crumpet—glided into the lee …

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A Duffy Whitmore Adventure

Epistolary Prelude

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Chapter One: The Sounding of the Horn

It was shortly after luncheon—cold roast beef, curried mango, and a pale local beer that smelled faintly of bananas—when Lord Thornton, known to his intimates and long-suffering valet as “Ruffles,” declared the voyage must commence by horn.

We were gathered on the aft deck of Eurycleia, Ruffles’ newly refitted steam y…

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* Trevor’s Kodachrome Revelation

One seldom expects to encounter a crisis of metaphysics between the fish course and the port, but such is the price of dining at The Meringue.

Lord Thornton—“Ruffles” to his friends, “Bwana” to his man Kamau—had invited us to his estate in the Wanjohi Valley for what he termed a “modest little supper.” As usual, the place …

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Prologue (from Duffy’s Travel Compendium)

Avlospilos, Third of June ‘36

Arrived at The Aphrodite to find the hotel disagreeably pleased with itself. The walls are a pale shade of envy, the staff all scented with basil, and the melon arrives with such frequency one suspects they grow them in the lobby. Trevor is with me, naturally. His hair has returned to…

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“Adventure is simply inconvenience rightly considered.” —G.K. Chesterton

Dramatis Personae

* Duffy Whitmore – Our narrator; English, observant, slightly faded around the edges, but in a flattering way.

* Trevor Finch-Bligh – Of ancient stock and uncertain usefulness. Knows a great deal about port and very little about anything else. Unfortunately Trevor co…

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The hotel was perched somewhere between metaphysics and geology—half-eagle’s nest, half ruin—overlooking the bleached puzzle of Fira Harbour. A German named Hans ran it, or possibly his wife, or possibly a system of levers; one could never be sure. The bath had a curious habit of draining into the kitchen, which we discovered only after Trevor attempted…

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