Soon I started to hear from similarly afflicted people.  All were stricken with a malady which I have since dubbed WhOA (Whistle Obsessive Acquisition disorder).   Many were people, like me, who compulsively collect various brands and keys of whistles as an excuse to avoid actually learning to play well.  Others were very fine players worldwide, amateur and professional.

After a short time, I renamed the site Chiff & Fipple, purchased a domain name and located the site permanently at http://www.chiffandfipple.com .   It is the largest, most visited, and best known whistle website.   Over the years, I've accumulated huge numbers of pages on various whistle-related topics on the website.  There's also an insanely busy message board with over 1100 registered visitors and currently averaging about 40,000 messages per year. (More than 100 a day.  How weird is that?)  I publish a semi-regular email newsletter, also called Chiff & Fipple, which, as of today, has over 3000 subscribers.  The tone of the entire enterprise is very light and there's lots of fun and humor in addition to useful information.  I get about 20 whistle-related emails a day and try to respond to all of them. 

Now, one of the ironies is that, to this day, I am, at my best, a modestly talented amateur.  At best.  Although I am a very comfortable public speaker, I have a terror of playing the whistle in public.  So, I tend to remain a tad reclusive and haven’t circulated much with local Celtic music people because of this. (A few years ago, I did make Rick and Karen Cunningham cringe at the Chulrua show when I mispronounced "uilleann." In spite of that, they’ve been uniformly nice to me since.)   But, I understand the whistle rather well and I receive sample whistles from all the major makers.  I suppose I have 300 whistles.  (I can't keep inventory because they come in and I give some away).  These range from the whole catalog of inexpensive ones to handmade whistles made by fine craftsmen that cost in the neighborhood of $400.   There’s a range of Chiff & Fipple t-shirts and sweatshirts available. I get CDs sent to me for review now--I suppose about one a week.   I occasionally get calls from musicians who need a particular whistle in an odd key for performance or recording and I sometimes loan out instruments from my collection.  It's all very odd.