My obsessive admiration for the honourable Miss Phryne Fisher, the flapper detective conceived by Kerry Greenwood who solves crime in 1920s Melbourne, Australia, was the subject of my very first mid-day column. I was besotted by her feminist ways, her adventurous spirit, and her capacity for self-awareness. But I guess I had my blinkers on when I was swallowing the whole first season. I failed to see the one thing that made her truly stand out from all her other detective counterparts in the history of the genre: her propensity towards unbridled joy. Unlike the enigmatic Sherlock Holmes, who she is often compared to, Miss Fisher is unabashedly on the side of the living. It was only recently when I read an article about her that I realised that what made her truly unique was her epicurean nature. That is possibly what draws me most to her.

It is the season when the frangipani blooms and transcends. Like it, the quest for transcendence must drive us