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Matthew Engel on St. Helena
St Helena Independent 15 January 2016The former Guardian Journalist Matthew Engel has just paid a short visit to St. Helena and intends to write an article about it for the Financial Times. From the...
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Last Boat to St Helena
Article by Matthew Engel in the Financial Times, January 29th 2016Matthew Engel's article on St Helena has appeared in the Financial Times. A longish very thorough assessment, very critical of Governor...
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Napoleon at St Helena: Exhibition in Paris
Exhibition at Musée de l'Armée - Invalides During my last visit to St. Helena in early 2013 much of the Longwood furniture, including the famous bath and billiard table, was crated and despatched to...
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Napoleon's Rosebud
Humphry Knipe, a descendant of the Knipe family from St Helena, has written an historical novel about Napoleon and Humphry's much admired Great Great Grand Aunt Charlotte. It is not really the kind of...
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St. Helena 1821: The Malingering Ex-Emperor
Mme Betrand visiting Napoleon, from Inside LongwoodReading the introduction to Thomas Keneally's excellent novel Napoleon's Last Island, reminded me how Sir Hudson Lowe, Sir Thomas Reade and Government...
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St. Helena Airport Update
Flight departure board, O.R. Tambo International Airport Johannesburg Today for the first time St. Helena's name appeared on an airline departure board. A British Airways Boeing 737-800 registration...
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What the Governor Did Next: From St. Helena to Paris and Ajaccio
Governor Mark Capes leaving St. HelenaI don't think the Governorship of St. Helena has ever been an easy job, and Governor Capes has probably had a rougher ride than most. He has now made way for a new...
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The Disturbing Story of St. Helena Airport: No Happy Ending Yet in Sight
St Helena Independent 29th April 2016You really could not make it up: £250 million spent on building an airport; plans made for a member of the Royal Family to fly in for the official opening; critics...
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St Helena Airport: To Be or Not To Be? That still seems to be the question.
St Helena Independent 13th May 2016Another confusing week goes by and still we are no clearer as to when/if commercial aircraft will be able to use the new airport than at the time of my previous...
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Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène: La conquête de la mémoire (6 April to 24 July 2016)
A Hat that Napoleon Wore on St HelenaThe current exhibition at Les Invalides is the climax of several years' work and planning by Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, Honorary French Consul and Curator of the...
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St. Helena Airport: Category C Awaits.
St. Helena AirportThe picture of the runway on Prosperous Bay Plain, towering some 1000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, does not particularly inspire me with a wish to fly to St. Helena. There seems to...
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St Helena Airport: A Serious embarrassment for the Government?
Lord Ashcroft has apparently had to abandon his plans to fly to St Helena in his private jet because his pilot thinks it would be too risky to do so. He has written an extensive article for...
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St Helena Airport: The First Tourists Arrive!
Three Belgian philatelists arrive by private jet - only 9997 more to go The St Helena Government has announced the resumption of the R.M.S. St Helena until July 2017, over a year after the airport was...
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Legion d'honneur: Award for Michel Dancoisne-Martineau
First Legion d'Honneur Investiture, 1804 - painting by Jean Baptist Debret (1812)The Legion of Honour, first instituted by Napoleon in 1802 is the pre-eminent merit award in France. It was from the...
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The Airport Debacle: "How ever did they win [the war]?"
St Helena Independent, July 21st 2016 I don't keep up with what goes on in Parliament, but the St. Helena Independent has confirmed the conclusions I came to in my most recent post on the St. Helena...
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Queen Victoria's Visit to Napoleon's Tomb
Queen Victoria at the Tomb of Napoleon, 24 August 1855, by Edward Matthew WardQueen Victoria's official visit to France during the reign of Napoleon III was the first by an English/British monarch...
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St Helen Airport - Napoleon's Revenge?
A first for St. Helena Airport: two planes side by sideThe sight of two planes on the tarmac at the island's £290 million pound airport might seem encouraging. Alas one was hired by the airport...
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St. Helena Airport: Light at the End of the Tunnel?
The St Helena Independent, October 21st 2016 Sometime this afternoon an Avro RJ100 is scheduled to land on St Helena. It will be using the shorter 02 runway, which avoids the major windshear problems...
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St Helena Exhibition at Les Invalides: The Most Popular Ever at the Museum
In what seems like another age, before we realised that there were serious problems with St.Helena's new airport, I blogged about my visit to the exhibition at Les Invalides in Paris. The exhibition of...
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Napoleon and the Weather: An Early Chaos Theorist?
Satellite image showing cloud formations over St. Helena.There is a lot of weather on St Helena, and nowhere more perhaps than at Longwood, where Napoleon had plenty of time to dwell on it. In the...
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