On Sunday, Shelby finally won his sixth game after 24 consecutive winless starts. Trying to worry out the Shelby conundrum it has occurred that perhaps Chaucer might show him and us the way to redemption, to at least a deeper understanding of what is going on.
After all, he created a Miller, a famous one, and then when one of his fellow travelers on the road to Canterbury – our ‘gentle, parfitt Knyghte’ – invited the Monk to add his tale to what had just been told…
The Miller, drunk, preempted him and told his bawdy tale of a carpenter and his young wife.