Tuesday, 4:15pm, Waitrose on the A235. Archbishop Gerald Fane, 68, clutching a meal deal and a copy of his own book Meditations on Drainage, spots a tall man in a Kangol cap and purple shirt and becomes instantly convinced it is Samuel L Jackson. He produces what witness Maureen Codd, 74, describes as 'the noise a heron makes if you sneak up on it with a trolley'. The man, kitchen fitter Barry Dunlop, turns and hoots back 'out of politeness, like returning a wave'. A security guard named Darren escorts Fane to the car park while Fane protests that he has hooted at many men and never once been in trouble. The diocese's social media team posts 'Archbishop enjoys chance celebrity encounter' and deletes it within the hour as the replies turn feral.
You will note, reader, that I say 'hoot' and not 'whoop' or 'yell' or 'make a noise'. I say hoot because it was a hoot — a genuine, two-syllable, owl-adjacent hoot, the kind that has not been heard in polite society since the early 1970s, when we still had the decency to express joy outdoors rather than into a phone. I have been saying since 1987 that the abandonment of dogging — by which I mean the ancient practice of wandering the countryside making unforced vocalisations of surprise and delight, not whatever it is you young people think it means — would lead to exactly this sort of confusion. You're a nob. And now we are here.
The Hoot Was a Category Three Vocal Incident Within Ninety Minutes
Within ninety minutes, the exchange had been logged under the diocese's £340,000 Celebrity Interaction Policy, drafted by London consultancy Huxley-Bray. The policy, commissioned after a bishop waved at a soap actress in a garden centre in 2022, grades unsolicited vocal recognition of public figures by frequency, intent and celebrity proximity.
Compliance officer Ingrid Palmer, 26, fills in form CE-11 and admits to a colleague that the form 'asks whether the hoot expressed delight, and there is a box for it'. Fane's hoot scores 8.4 on the Diocesan Vocal Index, with 'delight' ticked twice. Huxley-Bray invoices a further £60,000 for hoot assessment support.
"I have ticked the box marked 'delight' twice," said Palmer, who is paid £22,000 a year and has been told she is not to speak to the press. "The form is very clear. There is also a box for 'dismay', but it is smaller, and I do not think it applies here. I am not paid enough to say whether the form is insane."
Palmer is, of course, a total wanker. But she is not wrong.
The Excommunication Arrived With a Typo and a Feedback Survey
The tribunal — two canons, an HR consultant and a man from finance who thought it was a different meeting — convenes in a converted storage cupboard at diocesan headquarters, a former Travelodge in Purley. Nobody has performed an excommunication since 1563, so Canon Michael Prentice looks up the procedure on a forum and adapts it.
The letter declares Fane 'hearby expelled from the communion of this church for cause of scandal, namely hooting', attaches a privacy notice and invites him to rate his excommunication experience out of ten. Fane appeals on the grounds that the hoot was pastoral; the tribunal upholds the ruling, finding the hoot 'carried elements of delight', an aggravating factor.
"The church must show it takes celebrity boundaries seriously," said Prentice, 59, who has never met a celebrity and once waved at a postman by mistake. "We cannot have archbishops hooting at kitchen fitters in supermarkets, even if the kitchen fitter is dressed as Samuel L Jackson. The 1563 procedure was in Latin and conducted by men with spares. We have adapted it for the modern era, which means we use email and we do not have spares."
Prentice is a pillock of the first order. The typo — 'hearby' — was retained on the advice of the diocese's legal team, who argued that correcting it would create a precedent.
The Hooted Man Now Attends Synod By Right of Conquest
Barry Dunlop becomes a national treasure overnight. His memoir Say Hoot Again sells 200,000 copies and he appears on breakfast television holding a mug, defending Fane:
"He hooted at me like I mattered," said Dunlop, 51, who has been a Samuel L Jackson lookalike at children's parties for nine years. "Nobody's done that since my mum died. I hooted back because it's professional courtesy. You don't leave a man hanging on a hoot. That's not how hooting works."
The diocese issues him a formal apology, a certificate of apology and an interfaith advisory post, which he accepts, and by February he is voting at synod on candle expenditure. A signed photograph from the actual Samuel L Jackson arrives addressed to 'the hooting bishop' and is ruled inadmissible on the grounds that it arrived outside the appeals window. The actor has not commented, and there is no reason he should.
Dunlop, by the way, is not a twat. He is the only person in this entire affair who has behaved with any dignity, and he did it while wearing a Kangol cap indoors.
Nobody Remembers How to Un-Archbishop a Man
Fane refuses to stop being an archbishop because nobody can locate the paperwork for reversing one. He holds dawn services in the Travelodge car park, attended by eleven worshippers and a lurcher named Des, and hoots softly at passing clergy; two deacons who hooted back now face tribunals of their own.
Huxley-Bray is rehired at further cost to produce a 90-page Hoot De-escalation Strategy recommending that all future hoots be submitted in writing fourteen working days in advance. The strategy has been circulated to all dioceses, along with a flowchart that begins 'Is the hoot audible?' and ends 'Do not hoot.'
The rain falls on Fane in the car park. He hoots gently at a curate who does not meet his eye. The diocese announces a period of reflection that it has already invoiced. Somewhere, a heron watches, and says nothing. You're a nob.