Everyone knows this, right?  Geoff was recently inspired by the Writer’s Strike:

Yf ye wonder, lordinges and ladyes, wher Galfridus Chaucer hath been
synce September, the answer is: in a verray purgatorie of busynesse. It
pleseth me litel to labour as clerk of the kinges werkes, and yet labor
ich muste, for Philippa forever addeth to our hous yn Kent and litel Lowys
is beginning to speke of applyinge to Universitee next yeere (the
whiche surpriseth me gretely – paraventure it is the ale of Oxford that
lureth hym, not the bookes).

My lord Kyng Richard is a man of
muchel ymaginacioun and many needes. Ich had thoghte that beinge clerk
of the kinges werkes wolde involve sum smal calculaciouns of repaires
to palaces and castles, or perchaunce sum litel arrangement of walls to
be buylt and an odd tournament heere and there. By Seynt Barbara, not
in eny way! Kyng Richard and hys fauorites Robert de Vere,
Justice Tresilian, Bishop Neville, Nicholas Brembre and Michael de la
Pole (the which clepen themselves the “brat packe”) alwey asken me to
arrange sum project of construccion that semeth a thing of fayerye.
Fountayns of red and whit wyn in Hull? Chekke. An reenactement of the
battel of Hastinges wyth dogges and cattes in armour? Chekke. A monster
trukke rallye the which involveth a trukke that transformeth yn to a
dinosaur? Chekke. Makinge a giant elephaunt walk the stretes of
Londoun? Chekke. A Carolingian Renaissance fayre? Chekke (thogh that
was prety esy, for it was miniscule). Mesemeth yf thes counsellors to
the kyng do not get their spendinge and extravagaunce under control,
sum thyng bad myght happen.

from Geoffrey Chaucer, the Holy-wood Scabbe

I hope all of you get as many jollies out of trying to read this aloud as I do.  But perhaps a formative experience with "Avril, and her shores sote" (I have no idea how to spell that, mom – perhaps you should have made me copy it over as well) is required.