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Maybe it’s because the Commons, the airy, industrial-chic new venue that arose from Pescatore’s massive makeover last year, is a more spacious Victoria Film Festival launch party venue than Oyster once was.

When history professor Barry Gough retired to his native Victoria, he ended up surrounded by watery echoes of the Royal Navy’s first attempt at globalization.

Dec. 26, 2015, was the 100th anniversary of one of the strangest naval battles of the First World War, when an eccentric British officer who had married a woman from Victoria took on the German navy with two little boats on Lake Tanganyika.

This column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Jan. 7, 1939. A day like this would stir anyone’s heart.

Dunno, but the poor old world was pretty black and blue in 2015. A devastating earthquake in Nepal. Terrorist attacks from Kenya to California. A German pilot who deliberately crashed an airliner into the Alps. So many mass shootings in the U.S.

What kind of year was it in the art world? Not bad. Things took a tumble back in 2008 and, since then, artists have been clawing their way back to where they used to be. We’re not there yet, but we seem to be heading for sunny days.

The column first appeared in the Victoria Daily Times on Dec. 31, 1938. I have before me a summary of the wars since 1918, and note the number is 20. It is no use computing the number of deaths or the money spent.

For a six-year-old boy coming to terms with Type 1 juvenile diabetes, at least one of his dreams came true this Christmas. Living with the disease means he has to test his blood — which involves pricking his finger — six to 10 times a day.

The waves rose out of nowhere, tipped the boats straight up and hurled people into the churning seas. There was no time for maydays.