: BBC Views Online have just revealed that the man they mistakenly interviewed live on BBC News 24 in place of Guy Kewney is, in fact, Guy Goma, an applicant for a “data support cleanser” job. According to the BBC:
The mix-up occurred when a producer went to collect the expert from the wrong reception in BBC Television Centre in West London.
That’s a BBC euphemism for “the wrong kind of snow“. A BBC spokeswoman said “This has turned out to be a genuine misunderstanding”, in other words, “a momentous cock-up”!
Still, reassuringly for Tellytax-payers, they say “We’ve looked carefully at our guest procedures and will take every measure to ensure this doesn’t happen again”, until the next time, that is.
Meanwhile, in other BBC cock-up news, almost literally in this case, have a listen to this gem of a BBC Radio Leicester record dedication, courtesy of YouTube:
Okay, let’s get to our first, straightaway, to our first dedication:
“Dear Chris, Please say a big hello to Connie Lingus, who’s 69 on Tuesday. She’ll be enjoying my meat and two veg. on Sunday at 12. Wish her all the very best, and tell her I look forward to seeing her when she comes, thanks ever so much”,
says Ivan R. Don, and he says, “Please say hello to Bill as well”, and that comes from Ivan, going out to Connie in Thurnby Lodge, here in Leicestershire.
Superb! Where does the BBC get these people from?
Update: Re. a query about the veracity of the above clip, it certainly seems genuine – it was reported in The Sun, DJ boob on the Beeb (so it must be true!), and is also mentioned in a copy of a press story here.
Update: Daily Mail: Revealed: The identity of the BBC’s latest star. Guy Kewney: That “Guy” – he really is a Guy, and not a cab driver, either!
Update: More details emerge in The Times, The interview went pretty well. So, have I got the job?:
“Poor soul, he was nervous and just did as he was told,” Mr Waldman wrote on the BBC news weblog, which can be read only by BBC staff.
Mr Waldman wrote on the blog: “Harassed producer sets off at a brisk pace to get his guest from ‘reception’. You’ve guessed: wrong reception. The wrong Guy is asked three questions, with toe-curling results”.
… the man they mistakenly interviewed live on BBC News 24 in place of Guy Kewney is, in fact, Guy Goma, an applicant for a “data support cleanser” job.
But didn’t they say he was a cabbie?
Er, that’ll teach them not to use only first names!
“data support cleanser job”
in other words – the Have Your Say moderator job.
lots of data cleansing required there.
I hope they had the good grace to pay him his broadcast fee!
I thought this was truely hilarious but I felt for poor Mr. Goma. I mean he’s expecting an interview but not on camera! Lucky for him he’s a computer guy and so could answer the questions re: the internet.
Andrew
Maybe you should set up a sister site entitled ” 2rd rate BBC ” or ” cock-up BBC “, concentrating on the decine of the BBCs in its general quality and programming, against its ever increasing budget.
…….Make that ” 3rd rate BBC.” or “cocked-up BBC”
Has anybody checked if the BBC Radio Leicester thing is kosher ?
I mean it really does sound too obvious. No ?
Oh come on, I thought this was supposed to be a site about BBC bias? The Guy example is amusing, but the second is just pathetic.
If someone is puerile enough to submit that as a dedication, I hardly think you can blame the BBC radio assistant/presenter for not realising the double entendre and letting it get on air. Not everyone has the mind of a 13-year-old schoolboy.
Grow up Andrew!
Helen,
I think its OK to show examples of the BBC being biased and crap.
That’s why I asked if the BBC Leicester thang was kosher. Most normal people have a built in thing called “common sense”, which seems to protect them from spoofs and practical jokes. If BBC staff do not have this, then its noteworthy.
I would agree that the black guy was a lot funnier than the “Connie Lingus” hoax. His expression early on is priceless.
BTW, guys, I posted a link to this site on the BBC radio 4 MB this morning – did you get much extra traffic ?
Well Helen, both incidents have had me laughing all day long – both the expression on Mr. Goma’s face and the dope at Radio Leicester.
I hope that most Biased BBC readers will appreciate a little humour from time to time amongst the more serious stuff here, particularly when we can all laugh at the BBC for a change instead of just getting mad at it.
Sorry if you don’t like it – please accept a full refund of your subscription, with my compliments, and continue to enjoy the rest of Biased BBC free of charge!
By the way, what’s wrong with 13 year old schoolboys? At heart at least half the Biased BBC audience is of that ilk – we don’t really grow up you know – even if, most of the time, we do a pretty good job of hiding it!).
Andrew.
P.S. Do we know one another?
The Connie Lingus thing is amusing, but the BBC is hardly the only big media outlet to fall for the old double entendre wheeze.
I remember Spike Milligan telling about how he used to slip double entendres unnoticed by beeb management into the script. It was a subversive, inside joke thing. He had a character called Hugh Jampton.
Yes Andrew I think we do!
He should get a talk show! Hell he’s a ton better than Davina. They could ask him random questions about all the week’s news and see how he responds. Gold dust!
Well, why should I take anything a 13-year-old schoolboy says about the media seriously then?
And yes I do know you – it irks me that you now insist on anonymity.
How about the Scottish-based Islamonutter Mullah Qinta’ir ?
‘He should get a talk show! Hell he’s a ton better than Davina. They could ask him random questions about all the week’s news and see how he responds. Gold dust!’
Brings to mind the Peter Sellers film where he played Chancy Gardener. Forgot the name of the film, someone help me out.
Helen – you’re not Helen Boaden by any chance are you?
TPO: Being There.
GB
Thanks, it’s old age creeping up on me!
Helen Boaden – who she? No I am Helen of Troy.
This Helen Boaden:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/biographies/biogs/news/helenboaden.shtml
I really must go and do some work now.
Don’t forget the medieval Irish explorer, Mark O’Polo.
Wow, thank you for exposing the shocking bias in BBC Radio Leicester radio dedications! You’ve really opened my eyes! First applying the presumption of innocence even to chavs, now this!
Watching that poor guy on BBC reminded me of a drunken musical talent with whom I spoke at the Country Music Association Festival three years ago while working with ABC News. It seemed like no matter what I asked her I got the same garbled, rambling response. On the plus side, though, Mr. Goma was vague enough with his answers to be a successful politician. Well done!
Hannah/Helen: “Well, why should I take anything a 13-year-old schoolboy says about the media seriously then?”
Hi Hannah, sorry, er, Helen, I see you’re still at the BBC. I never realised you took what we said here seriously anyway! Actually, thinking back, there were a couple of posts that you got pretty serious about though. Am glad we agreed to differ.
Hannah/Helen: “And yes I do know you – it irks me that you now insist on anonymity”
Just like you Hannah, sorry, Helen, I like to maintain a modicum of anonymity (at least Andrew is my real name!) – it’s not unreasonable under the circumstances – I have no desire, however unlikely it may seem to you, to make it too easy for those who might wish to do me physical harm.
It must be galling for the Beeboids to become an international laughing stock and be pilloried by the Murdoch press…
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006220380,00.html
😆
As for the two prats at Radio Leicester – the one who wouldn’t recognise a double entendre if it fell on him and his puerile colleague who hoaxed him • I think this blog should be highlighting the deficiencies of the staff in an organisation we are compelled to fund.
We can’t have a story broken by the Mail without some kind of fabrication in it now, can we?
Nice, humorous story about Mr Goma’s appearance. But what gets me is who started the ‘cabbie’ rumour and was its origin in racism?
At Nick Cohen’s blog:
http://www.nickcohen.net/?p=104
GUY GOMA, the Congolese man who was hustled into the studios of BBC News 24 and compelled to pontificate on a subject he knew nothing about, says the experience traumatised him. But how different was it from that of other talking heads?
A while back Channel 4 News asked me to sound off about the moral implications of fertility treatment for women in their sixties alongside a media don, a conservative columnist and a bishop.
I told the researcher I hadn’t written or thought about the subject and had nothing worth saying.
Far from welcoming my frankness, she got quite stroppy. ‘But none of other guests know what they’re talking about either,’ she snapped.
Biodegradable,
That’s priceless!
Straight from the fillie’s mouth eh? 🙂
Brings to mind the Peter Sellers film where he played Chancy Gardener.
“Being There”
–pedantically yours,
Susan
Jack, I believe, from all that I’ve read on this, that it was an anonymous BBC source that identified the wrong Guy as a cab driver, rather than an assumption made by multiple journalists, but however it came about, I seriously doubt that racism had anything to do with it whatsoever. That aside, London cabbies are generally London born and bred (whatever their colour), since ‘the knowledge’, as it is known, takes several years of study to acquire.
Thank you for clarifying that, Andrew. When I think about it, most of the cabbies I have had in the UK are native and Caucasian.
http://www.guygoma.com
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5029244.stm
The beeb is obsessed with posting stories about the guy… slightly goes against your assertion that if it was any other channel the bbc would be going on and on about it, but they will hush up this.
good to see this website keeping up its tradition of talking utter crap