New feature

Fans of The BVI Beacon’s sports section will have something new to look forward to each month, with the addition of the sports profile feature. Like the Beacon’s regular business profile, the sports profile will highlight an array of people, including athletes, coaches and trainers. If you know someone who would make for a good profile, contact Sports Editor Todd VanSickle at tvansickle@bvibeacon.com. And check out this week’s profile on page 50.

 

 

Sailing car

On Monday while driving to work, a Beaconite noticed a car almost completely submerged in the sea near Prospect Reef. The Beaconite stopped to take a photo of the automobile. There was no evidence to suggest how the accident happened, but she hopes that no one was injured. For its part, the car seems likely to be totalled.

Santa’s deputy

A reporter decided to get into the Christmas spirit at the Lions and Leos clubs’ tree lighting ceremony, and two things surprised her. First, she seemed to be the only one wearing a Santa hat at the event — although plenty of attendees were in festive red outfits. The second surprise was the number of small children who were evidently delighted to see the journalist and her hat. “Are you Santa?” asked a couple of kids. The reporter didn’t want to be mobbed for not having presents with her, so she answered honestly, but looking back she wishes she would have gotten out her notebook and told the kids it was the Virgin Islands portion of Mr. Claus’ naughty or nice list.

Caribbean book

A long-time former Virgin Islands resident and former owner of the provisioning shop Ample Hamper has written a novel set in the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s. Robert Dick-Read, who lived in the VI from 1963 to 1988, recently wrote Man Goes Bananas, a novel based in the fictional Santa Maria islands. The book tells the stories of several characters in a narrative that involves instances of corruption, affairs and murder. Mr. Dick-Read, who self-published the novel and is selling it via Amazon.com, said that parts of the book — at least the depictions of one character’s efforts to make a living by finding suitable land on island for would-be developers — are “to an extent” autobiographical.

Poet and magistrate

A Beaconite was sorry to see Dr. Velon John’s tenure as magistrate come to an end last week. Sitting in court can be very boring at times, but Dr. John would always make things more interesting with his poetic and rhythmical verdicts. For instance, if a defendant were caught lying on the stand, most judges would simply say he or she lied. Dr. John, on the other hand, might say, “The defendant became entangled in a web of lies.” And instead of saying that he was acquitting someone because the prosecution had a gap in the evidence, he would say that there was an “evidentiary lacuna” in the case. One of the Beaconite’s favourite sayings from him happened when the magistrate advised a man involved in a domestic dispute to be good to his girlfriend because she epitomises the “pulchritude of femininity.”  The Beaconite had to look up “pulchritude” in the dictionary (it means “beauty”), but now he plans to use the phrase to woo a woman come Valentine’s Day. The Beaconite had the opportunity to conduct an exit interview with Dr. John, and asked him if he took particular joy in writing his verdicts because they seemed so poetic. That’s when the magistrate revealed that he indeed took great joy in doing so, and that he writes poetry on the side as one of his hobbies. To top off the interview, he even gave the Beaconite a signed copy of one of his books of prose, poems and aphorisms. The Beaconite would like to share a verse he especially liked because it reminds him of the creative process that goes into writing:

From the womb of my thoughts

I conceived thee

And with the intensity

Of my imagination

You were placed in the realm

Of my orbit

 

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