St Helena
About St Helena
Saint Helena is a volcanic and tropical island, located in the South Atlantic Ocean, west of the mainland of the continent of Africa, with the Southern African nations of Angola and Namibia on its southeastern coast being the closest nations geographically. The island is around 1,950 km (1,210 mi) west of the coast of southwestern Angola, and 4,000 km (2,500 mi) east of the major seaport city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in South America. It is one of the three constituent parts of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory.
On the show — 13 mentions total
Someone tried to post themselves out of St Helena. A prisoner of war called Andrées Smorenberg made a crate, wrote 'Curios only inside here' on it, climbed in, and got it placed where it would be picked up by a passing mail ship — with a fake address in London — and bedded down for the 20-day journey.
from No Such Thing As Drinking A Sock Full Of Custard, 2025-05-22 at 00:23:11 · read transcript
Other times St Helena came up
It was kind of like, if you're doing something which is really regimented, maybe that doesn't help the creative part of your brain. That's what they used to say. For instance, there was an argument in Scientific American in 1859 that Napoleon the Great loved playing chess, but he was often beaten by a rough grocer in St Helena. What went rough in what way? They didn't specify.
302: No Such Thing As A Hedgehog Circus, 2020-01-03 · listen
Hard to know what to do with that mail when it drops through your doorstep. They gave them a Royal Mail postcode. Because that was the only way you could really get there for a very long time, which was the RMS St. Helena. It was the Royal Mail ship. that would bring all the post over, so you would sort of jump onto that in order to get over.
No Such Thing As Drinking A Sock Full Of Custard, 2025-05-22 · listen
The idea is that if you're at a wedding There'll be a big sort of table with a load of goodies on And everyone will dance around it And then you'll eat something from the table And it's usually some bread Dipped in tomato tapinard Yeah pretty much Because it's really hard to get hold of fresh stuff there Basically once a month you get a boat That comes in with fresh fruit and vegetables And everyone legs it to the shop Six pack of watsits Which is two pound at poundland In the UK is £4 £1,000 on St Helena, and a box of cornflakes that's £2, £8,000 in the UK, is £7 £1,000 in St Helena. There's not that much else to spend your money on, so you're not complaining. No, there's not a lot of going on, but two very famous residents, as most people, if they think of St Helena, Napoleon being exiled there after Waterloo in 1815, and the other famous resident, you know who that is? No. Jonathan the Giant Tortus.
No Such Thing As Drinking A Sock Full Of Custard, 2025-05-22 · listen
Because that's when the next boat leaves. Possibly, right? Yeah. I should just say thanks to my sister-in-law's best friend who gave me a lot of information about St Helena, because she lives there. The national dish of St Helena is tomato paste sandwiches. They're called Bread and Dance. The idea is that if you're at a wedding, there'll be a big sort of table with a load of goodies on and everyone will dance around it and then you'll eat something from the table.
584: No Such Thing As Drinking A Sock Full Of Custard, 2025-05-22 · listen
More places from this episode
No Such Thing As Drinking A Sock Full Of Custard put 2 places on the map.
- Guinea Bissau · Guinea-Bissau
Coordinates: -15.9667, -5.7000