The advertisement wanted a honker. The first applicant was a coot. Not a goose, not a duck, not any bird whose apparatus has ever been heard to produce a sound that would file under that heading. The coot of the Channel Sprint lodged his letter on Saturday morning in the reeds above the south bank, and he brought the pebble. The same small pebble of sentimental value that has served this season as his registration, his exhibit, and, at one Subcommittee session, his paperweight.
The letter runs to nine lines. It was opened for inspection here, and the opening is reproduced with the coot’s written consent:
Sir or Madam, I write, in the capacity of a competitor of proven register and documented persistence, to express my interest in the position of Co-Honker (Midsummer Programme, 2026), as advertised in this gazette on the ninth instant. My qualifications include: vocal projection across open water (demonstrated, Channel Sprint, April); sustained output under competitive conditions (ibid.); and a willingness to defer to the senior performer in matters of tempo, provided that the question of my classification, see the pending motion, seventh deferral, is not thereby prejudiced.
Four more lines follow in the same vein. They ask that the audition be held somewhere a wading bird can reach. They ask that the Clerk of the Race be notified, so the coot’s participation enters the record as a further exhibit in support of the reclassification. The advertisement had mentioned no exhibits, no reclassification, and no Channel Sprint.
The Subcommittee received all this with what sources near the reeds call controlled silence. The Clerk, asked for a word, said the letters would be reviewed in the order received, and that no candidate would be excluded on grounds of species if the register could be shown at audition. Whether a coot could honk was, in his view, “not a matter for correspondence but for the ear.” He said it with a steadiness that was hard not to admire.
Hettie’s mother, reached on a matter described as “adjacent,” declined to discuss the coot at all. She said the senior performer’s requirements stood as posted, that Hettie’s terms were proceeding satisfactorily, and that further questions on the co-honker could go to the Clerk. After a pause of three breaths she added that Hettie had been practising and was “in good form (ish).” This paper let the qualification stand.
So the question is whether a sharp, carrying call of wide lateral range and narrow tonal variety is a “suitable” instrument for close harmony with a gosling of Hettie’s range. This paper declines to rule before the audition. More letters are expected. No date is fixed.
The pebble, at the time of writing, remains with the Clerk. The bird who cannot honk has applied to honk, and the office has agreed to listen.