“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: KEITH THE BUTLER AND THE INFAMOUS CHENGDU SHUYANFU RESTAURANT VIKING CRUISE PASSENGER SHIP BRAWL:

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: KEITH THE BUTLER AND THE INFAMOUS CHENGDU SHUYANFU RESTAURANT VIKING CRUISE SHIP PASSENGER BRAWL: SHOCKING PARENTAL NEWS!

Each cabin on the Eastern & Oriental Express had a butler and Keith was ours.

I can’t say I had much trust in Keith resulting from his admission of accepting a “courtesy payment” from CNN reporter Jambon Prosciutto to access our State Cabin after the Malay Tiger incident.

The investigators unearthed some interesting and even salacious facts about Keith;

  • KEITH WAS ALLEGEDLY THE “ILLEGITIMATE” SON OF SIR REGINALD NICOMSHIRE AND MADAME FONG!
  • Nicomshire provided him with an annual stipend of a modest amount
  • No criminal record
  • Nicomshire sent him to the Chengdu Culinary and Hospitality Institute in China for a two-year certification programme
  • At Keith’s first post graduate job at the Shunyanfu Dinner Show Restaurant in Chengdu a group of Viking Cruise ship passengers on an inland excursion complained about the lack of hamburgers and Budweiser beer chastising Keith, acting as manager, for not having an English floor show. Keith chastised the Americans for being obese potbellied Yanks crude as can be for wearing baseball caps in the restaurant. A pushing match ensued and an all-out riot ensued amongst staff and the Viking Cruise Ship passengers. The American ambassador to China threatened a United States levy of a 4,000% tariff on Chinese Tilapia imported into the United States unless Keith was deported to Singapore and so he was
  • Nicomshire’s will bequeathed to Keith an annual life stipend of $50,000 USD .

Bobby Fong Jr. now had a half-brother.

Madame Fong denied any carnal link to Sir Reginald Nicomshire saying in Bill Clintonesque fashion, “I never had sex with that man!”

The eager beaver investigators had a motive for Keith being the murderer…money, that annual stipend and never being formally recognized by Nicomshire as being his son.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: AM I NOW AS SUSPECT IN THE MURDER OF SIR REGINALD NICOMSHIRE?

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: AM I NOW AS SUSPECT IN THE MURDER OF SIR REGINALD NICOMSHIRE?

Sir Reginald Nicomshire was murdered. Shortly thereafter Cuddlecakes, that’s me, is named a substantial beneficiary under his testamentary provisions. Did Cuddlecakes know he was a beneficiary hence knocked off the old geezer to collect his inheritance?

Sounds good in theory unless you realize Cuddlecakes, my alias, is a puppy and how can a puppy murder a human being? Perhaps a puppy can be used as a lure but how can a puppy have intent to murder? Someone was using a puppy as a puppy can not manipulate a human, except for food of course! I remind readers please remember this is not a graphic comic where a puppy can walk, talk, carry a weapon and commit murder!

Legally a puppy can not be charged with a crime but eager Singaporean and Malaysian police are so eager to pin the murder of Nicomshire on anyone they overlooked my puppiness making me a suspect. Ludicrous. I mean they couldn’t even have questioned me!

Nonetheless I have been prohibited from leaving the train.

God help the criminals of Singapore and Malaysia being questioned by their respective police forces.

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: I AM HALF A BILLIONAIRE! A TRUST FUND BABY!

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: I AM HALF A BILLIONAIRE! A TRUST FUND BABY!

Bobby Fong Jr. was reading The Singapore Times after our breakfast and he nearly had a conniption and choked on his 12 Monkeys Cambodian Tea! “Cuddlecakes, you are now a trust fund baby!”

A search of Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s State Cabin on the Eastern & Oriental Express unearthed a codicil wherein Nicomshire revised his will to bequeath to Cuddlecakes, that’s me, two of his largest shipping lines, Hesso Steamships and Kouradaki Express worth an estimated $500,000 USD. I was referred to in the codicil as “Cuddlecakes my dearest man’s best friend.” Yes I knew that the man was obsessed with West Highland Terriers but not to this extent!

The management and ownership of the two shipping lines were to be held in a Singaporean Canine Trust under the trusteeship of the Pernakan and Hock Keng Trust Company. Eighty percent of the revenue was to be reinvested in the two shipping lines and twenty percent to the legal owner of Cuddlecakes “for the care, education, maintenance, health and comfort of Cuddlecakes as decided by the said legal owner.”

Let’s say I am about the richest puppy in the world! “Trouble”, Leona Hemsley’s dog was bequeathed a measly $12,000,000 in 2007 shaved down by judicial order to $2,000,000.

Sizeable bequests were made to The George Orwell Museum in the United Kingdom, The Sex Museum in New York City and several veterinarian and West Highland Terrier rescue operations in Canada and Southeast Asia.

The bulk of the estate was made to the reopening of Wells College in Aurora, New York closed in 2025 due to financial difficulties.

Nicomshire’s wife received all of Nicomshire’s real estate and an annual stipend of $40,000,000 until such time as her death.

What an honour for me. And since Bobby Fong Jr. was my owner, he benefitted as well. One problem though. Cuddlecakes was an assumed name and based on false documentation. Something to worry about later.

The news was not all milk and honey though as you will soon find out.

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: Money as a Curse (Deepti Kapoor)

“Money’s a fucking curse, he said. It cuts out all the hard work. Before you had to be kind or funny or fun. Interesting or intelligent. You had to take the time to know people. You had solidarity with them. Then you’re rich. It annihilates everything. Everyone is nice to you. Everyone wants you there. You’re the most popular person in the room. It’s so easy to be charming when you’re rich. Everyone laughs at your jokes and hangs on your word. You forget and think its about you. Then sometimes you go somewhere and you don’t spend, and it’s so miserable, it’s so horrible to go back to the drawing board, and you’ve forgotten how to earn somebody’s trust or love, and you know its easier with a shortcut or two, so you bring out cash in the end, the wad, the clip, the card, and the thrill of it is greater, because they didn’t know, and now they do. You’re rich. You’re in charge. They love you. Money’s a fucking curse.”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: Poverty, Ambition and the Upward Climb in India (Deepti Kapoor)

“The only thing he is guilty of is ambition. Of rising above his station. Did my father cut corners on the way? Yes. This is India. The game is rigged, the rules are stacked, you people make the rules in the first place. You already have everything, and you don’t want to share. So sometimes things must be taken. But ultimately, he gives people what they want. People like you, your colleague, they’ve always talked about him behind his back. I spent my school days listening to it. You know he sent me to a good school, he wanted me to improve, to mix with people like you. I was expelled. My classmates spoke just loud enough that I could hear. I could be reminded we were never like them. Thing is, the world has changed.”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: The Vulgar New India (Deepti Kapoor)

“Sunny fit into the long line of boys she’d flirted with at school, slept with in college, all the boys she’d parked on the ridge, whose daddies were wealthy businessmen, who represented the new vulgar India her mother railed against. He fit into that line, and he transcended it. While those boys had appealed to her, they’d always disappointed in the end. They’ d been conservative and dull at heart, or painfully dumb, or just plain boring. They had been her rebellion, but they themselves rebelled against precisely nothing.”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom” :THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE AMIRA I NEVER WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE AMIRA I NEVER WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED

Amira was Bobby Fong Jr.’s girlfriend. A strikingly beautiful Malay women who could drive a car or a yacht like no ones’ business. Despised by Madame Fong. Shunted to the sidelines because of that by Bobby Fong Jr.

Amira was a kind and gentle soul to me. Happy to give me a squeeze and a treat or a cuddle. I liked her.

I was surprised that investigators of Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s murder aboard the Eastern & Oriental Express spent a good deal of time probing Amira.

Investigators summed up their initial findings as such;

  • Her passport showed her as a citizen of Singapore
  • Charges of sedition and disturbing the peace had been issued by Singaporean police but later dropped for lack of evidence
  • She was a member of Malays for Equality in Singapore (MES) rumoured to be heavily funded from an unknown Sunni Muslim organization in Pakistan
  • She had written several articles for “Malay Equality Today” one of which lambasted Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s shipping companies for its covert refusal to hire Malays
  • The charge for disturbing the peace had been issued as a result of her chaining herself to the office doors of one of Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s shipping company’s offices waving a placard stating, “Stop Mandarin Oppression”.

Malays constitute approximately 15% of Singapore’s population and section 152 of the Singaporean Constitution recognizes the special position of Malays as the indigenous people of Singapore placing responsibility on the Singaporean government “ to protect, safeguard, promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language”.

Amira was steamed up after her interrogation and stormed into our State Cabin venturing forth her tales of Malay discrimination in Singapore and the imperative to break its vile chains. She fumed that Malays in Singapore were earning less than those of the Chinese majority, the lack of high ranking political and civil service positions occupied by Malays, under representation in the armed forces and police and the Singaporean government’s general favouritism of ethnic Chinese and the lack of protection and promotion of the Malay language. This was side of Amira new to me. A murderess…indeed not!

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: Get Out of Our Hair British Colonialism (Deepti Kapoor)

“I was there in England, I saw it, this ‘Cool Brittania.’ Oasis. Tony Blair. God Save the Bloody Queen. But you scratch the surface, it’s crumbling, its dying, there’s no future on that miserable island. The same in America. You think India is poor? Go travel around America. I couldn’t believe it. Meanwhile some backpacker in Paharganj wanders around crying about our poverty, shaking his head, taking pity on us, taking photos for the people back home. Take a look at your own backyard. Study your history, man. You people looted us, took everything. Now you look at us and say, You’re so spiritual, you have so much wisdom, you’re so wise. You’re so …simple’. Yeah we’re simple fucker. We’re simply going to destroy you. They don’t want us to, they don’t want us to be strong, to have heart, wit, resilience, ingenuity, wealth, power, but we are, but we do. We took their shit for so long, now the tables are turning. It’s our time now!”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: There Are No New Ideas (Audre Lorde)

“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt-of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead-while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strength.”

Audre Lorde, “Poetry is not a Luxury”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Militancy Does Not Mean Guns Blazing at High Noon (Audre Lorde)

“We who are Black are at an extraordinary point of choice within our lives. To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon. If it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming. It means doing the unromantic and tedious work necessary to forge meaningful coalitions, and it means recognizing which coalitions are possible and which coalitions are not.”

Audre Lorde, “Learning From the 1960’s”