Chaucer on Thames Street

View of Wool Wharf from the Tower

I've chosen the Paul Strohm lecture on Chaucer from the 'On the River' Summer School to write up first. There are a few immediate reasons: the talk wasn't about Chaucer's poetry; it involved the commercial aspect of the Thames; and the corruption amongst 14th century tax collectors felt very familiar. The scream of the Ricardian parliament for legislation! legislation! seems extremely modern and was just as effective.

As I proceeded to write this up, I started to question some of Strohm's assertions, some of his concluding remarks particularly confused me. However I hope that the summary of this lecture gives an insight into his ideas. He opened by stating that no one really mentions Chaucer's role as customs official, concentrating solely on his poetry. He says, and I agree, that people are missing quite a lot of interesting detail. Hence when Strohm stressed his interest in historical than literary Chaucer we were keen to hear what he had to say.

Career reflections and staff retention

’ Do you remember when you started your first post-university professional job? When you were eager to sign up to your professional organisation and get going on the post-nominals? I had just moved to London and during the mid-1990s had an open mind as to whether a job was going to be for life or for 6 months but I really hoped my first job would be special, long lasting and I worked really hard to get it right.

Which I did; that firm never had a keener or more passionate library assistant and I loved it there. Building on my theoretical library school knowledge, I learnt so much about how to – and how not to – run a library, design a new one, set up a library catalogue, see how lawyers reacted to the thought of mere support staff having email and communicating directly with clients. I would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for a number of issues, which I shall come on to in a moment. Despite having written a career overview for the excellent UKlibchat group, this posting isn’t just a mere excursion into nostalgia but recently I overheard someone say ‘if someone is good [at their job], we don’t expect them to stay’. Both have made me consider staff retention and there were a few things I wanted to think through.

Bubbles

Bubbles of time carry us through

Temporary states, atoms in flux

Weightlessly lifted mutating forms

Fleeting and turning with wind

Like notes of the band drifting out

Down over the water, down to the sea

Bubbles in swell both beneath and above

Bubbles of air are carried aloft

Endlessly recreated, suddenly stop

Nothing but puddles, like our footsteps,

Remain to show silent whispers of soap

As music ebbs, time shouts out

Bells of the churches, chug of the boat

Bubbles in swell both beneath and above

The Monteverdi Ballets; Baroque-Hip Hop

Tonight's outing heralded a very busy couple of weeks therefore I have no doubt that this won't be the last review posting of the up and coming weird and wonderful. It also strikes me that I have never done a really negative write up of something I've seen.

I'm a polite reasonable member of an audience, willing the performers to do well and I would never let criticism get in the way of enjoying an evening out. However the Monteverdi Ballets, presented as part of the Spitalfields Summer Festival, made me think about what makes an event work. Or not.