from the archives
The Legend of Stamp’s Landing, with bonus legend decoder
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Got this from the back of a menu at the pub. Hey, you think this kinda thing makes it into Toynbee???
The Legend of Stamp’s Landing
Stamp’s Landing was named by Captain Edward Stamp in honor[sic] of his great-grandfather who, in 1794, under the command of Lord Howe, fought in the battle of “the Glorious 1st of June” [they fought grouse from British warships off Spanish Banks? Vancouver’s history is even more colourful than I’d imagined. What kind of ordinance did the grouse use against the Brits, I wonder].
Sir William Henry Stamp, Bart [which isn’t a Simpson’s reference: it means “Baronet”] the commander of HMS Formidable [a word I can spell only by remembering the French, which sounds way cooler anyway, even just in your head] 74 guns, did engage in that battle and sustained a heavy blow to the head [ the Bart, not the Formidable]. Delirious, he jettisoned a small landing craft, boarded it and drifted into a fog bank and disappeared.
He drifted for several days at last hitting a rock shore in a small inlet now known as False Creek. He was greeted there by several friendly natives who cared for him, sustained him with food and drink, and showed him a good time. [he musta been a big spender]
After a year, he reluctantly bid farewell to that friendly place [besides, the girls were starting to “show” by now]. The natives took him into open water at what is now known as Point Atkinson. There he was picked up by a packing frigate that was patroling the area. Stamp related the story of his landing in that friendly place with beautiful women, good food and drink and warm companionship. All aboard were fascinated by the stories and the good fortune of Stamp’s Landing.
Throughout the years the name “Stamp’s Landing” has lived in legends of good fortune and navel [sic again, unless this is another sly pregnancy reference] luck. When adrift at sea, sailors would propose a toast with whatever rations they had left, “Here’s to another Stamp’s Landing!“
and now for the Secret Legend Decoder, which I got from inside mine own head.
Secret Legend Decoder
So this dude, no doubt sent abroad for sheer uselessness, as were so many young men of the times (there’s always a surplus of useless young men; at least, there was back then, before the days of motorcycles and fatal vending machine accidents) got the shit scared out of him when he was bopped on the head with something in battle with the fearsome grouse of the Lower Mainland, and besides, he was in the wrong ocean entirely anyway. So when an opportune fog bank rolled in, he got into a wee boat, hoping to sneak away from the action unmissed.
He succeeded, landed, managed to make some friends among some unwarlike people, and spent many months making a parasitic nuisance of himself. Finally, when they’d had enough of this pasty-faced layabout, they stuck him on a boat out in the middle of traffic, where sure enough some lemolo kingchauch sailed by and went: oh look! Anudder whiteboy! Let’s fish him up! Whereupon this dude lied the pants off himself and thus became legendary.
So much easier to do when you’re the one writing the legend, eh?
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raincoaster 
The bar has been set rather low, don’t you think? I keep waiting for the part where
Sir William Henry Stamp, Bart actually does something noteworthy.
You know, he’s a perfect 0 on Google. Oh to be so obscure!
Being a complete fuckup and still ending up rich and idolized is an old tale that lives on in Ashley Simpson, among others.
The Marchioness of WitchHampton under BUzzard de La Zouche
Your Grace
These Canuckistanis don’t seem to kNow much
Of Course, we k-now (pronounced k-no) what language the Grouse spoke – they were Buddhists believing in non-Violence und Khama – they spoke the Grouse dialekt of Sanskrit
Our Intelligence analysts even k-now what they said (or rather tried to say) as their massed ranks were cut down with grape-shot … something along the lines of “We would be greatly obliged oif you could see your way to kNot shooting us”
No wonder they demonstrated Hobbes’ assertion that the life of Grouse was (and is) nasty brutish and short
So much for the spiritual short-comings of Buddhism – it’s all very well claiming that all Religions are equally valid (a North-American expression for inValid)
aber, meine Herren und Damen und Squidden, as some Amerikans might say, what is the use of an Aircraft Carrier if you’re not prepared to use its Cruise missiles & make holes the size of football pitches
Your obedient & schokolade craving servant etc
G Eagle
It is because the life of the grouse is nasty, brutish and short that the word has become a synonym for complaint. If you were peacefully minding your own business and some Englishmen started shooting at you, what would YOU do? Other than spend ninety fruitless years trying to throw them back out of your country, that is…
The Marchioness
Your Grace
This is a bit rich, your Grace’s criticizing these Rooineks for inflicting their personality-defects on the unArmed Grouse – this will teach them the folly of not supporting the Republicans’ Military estimates
Wouldn’t your Tree Oktopodia mollusk friends relish the opportunity of ensnaring these tasty Avians with their tentacles, if they weren’t so busy swinging through the Trees in anxious flight from Monsieur Metro’s non-discriminating equal-opportunity Press Gangs … err … Recruiting Parties … err … Job-Creation Companies [federally-funded] for his Tree Oktopus Theme Park
And btw – Gorillas are Ascended (not DEscended) from Italians, who produce such wonderful Wine
Yr obedt servt
G Eagle
I had no idea gorillas produced wine of any kind. This explains the South African reds, I expect.
It is a well-known fact that Tree Octopi do not eat Grouse. Instead, they subsist primarily on a diet of ravens and tourists. Many attempts have been made to encourage them to eat seagulls, but these have, alas, never met with any success.
The “decoder” includes among other things the assumption that the people whasisface bumped into were “unwarlike”. Not consistent with history, as the crew of the Boston might testify. Let’s be truly egalitarian and credit everyone with the ability to be murdering bastards, eh?
Also not sure how The Glorious First relates to grouse or Vancouver. It seems a long drift in a small boat from Utrecht harbour to Vancouver, dwarfing even Lt. Bligh’s journey, especially for someone who seems a bit navigationally challenged.
And I find I must correct you on another point: While the larger Tree Octopi, particularly Cephalopodis Coleoidia Arborenesis Gigantis, prefer fresh tourists (particularly Germans for some reason), smaller species such as the Umbrella-Imitating Tree Octopus (Cephalopodis Coleoidia Arborenisis Mockbumbershootis) will take ravens, seagulls, grouse, and other birds. They use the feathers to line their crops, thus preventing irritaion of the gullet from the German tourist bones.
They are also partial to haggis, once they figure out they can’t mate with it.
Much like yourself. Metro, you are taking issue with the legend on the back of the pub menu; please do so with someone who cares. And your information about the seagull-eating Tree Octopus is entirely erroneous, as a quick visit to Snopes or Wikipedia would confirm. There is nothing that will eat those shithawks; nothing in all the world.
Tired of the dawn chorus again?
Who wouldn’t be? Somebody get me a shotgun.
Bonjour, Monsieur Metro
I hope the Marchioness never points her shot gun in either of our directions – I suppose it’s when she takes to the American Custom of blowing up Whales, that we will really need to fear for your Tree Oktopodia
Grandfather Eagle always opined that Duck-Shooting would only become a Sport when the Ducks could shoot back – was this anticipating Roald Dahl’s children’s story
It is a little known fact that in accordance with the pSeudo-Scientific Myth of Evolution, Admiral Stamp’s dutch ancestors used to pronounce & spell their name “Stomp” , before modern linguistic vowel=shifts led to its being pronounced “Stamp”
This is a reversion of the opposite linguistic vowel shift by which Anglo-Saxons (and modern residents of Solon, Ohio) pronounce as “Stanes” the word now pronounced “Stones”. The same vowel shift has transformed “bane” to “bone” – it does not seem to have effected “mane”
“Stamp” is of course evolving in Estuary English to “Stump”, on its way to becoming “Stemp” and thence back to “Stump”
Similar revolving vowel-gradations have apparently affected Sacks, Sicks, Socks & Sucks in the English of the Great Lakes – however, Ladies Children & Junior Eagles visit this blog – we should not illustrate this theme further
Yr obedt servt
GE
PS The Marchioness – Your Grace will not be surprised that only the difficulty of getting decent editorial staff has prevented my sacking Mr Eagle’s sub-editor for his atrocious spelling
They also pronounce as “Stanes” the word formerly pronounced as “Fawkes”, but that’s another matter.
We have always allowed a bit of leeway in the spelling, given that it must be very difficult to type with talons.
“Guy Stanes Night”.
Bonfire Night will never be the same …
Some people are all over that:
http://bread-and-circuses.net/?p=122