Today in 2006, a guy rose to the occasion when a BBC TV producer mistakenly brought him onto a live show to talk about the internet… even though they were actually supposed to interview somebody else.
His name was Guy Goma, and he had come to the BBC in West London that day for a job interview, not an on-air one.
He had applied for a job in the IT department, and he was waiting for his interview to start when a producer came into the lobby.
The producer was looking for a tech journalist named Guy Kewney, who had been booked to talk about a trademark dispute between the Beatles’ record label, Apple Records, and the tech giant Apple.
The producer asked a receptionist where Guy Kewney was, and the staffer pointed at Guy Goma.
Kewney was actually in a different waiting room, but the producer had been told that the guest was in the main lobby.
They asked, “are you Guy?” to which Guy Goma answered “yes.”
So they brought him back to the set, where presenter Karen Bowerman began the live segment and introduced him as technology expert Guy Kewney.
If you watch the video, you can see the moment where Goma realizes what’s happened.
As soon as he hears Kewney’s name, he starts looking around the set nervously, like, I guess this isn’t a job interview, is it?
But, of course, the show must go on, even if you’re in the show by accident.
So Guy Goma used his knowledge about the tech industry to answer the questions Bowerman asked.
And he did pretty well!
The video became a sensation in early social media, especially the relatively new video sharing site called YouTube.
And a lot of people saluted Guy Goma for the smooth way he’d handled such an odd situation.
As one commenter noted, whether or not he got the job at the BBC, he could always show that he worked well under pressure.
We’ve featured the work of the site Brilliant Maps before on the show.
Recently they used the AI system Midjourney to make collection of 19 world maps as if they’d been drawn by famous artists.
Most of the maps do show the continents with some familiar artistic flourishes.
As for the Jackson Pollock map… not so much.
It’s Been 10 Years Since the Wrong Guy Analyzed the Internet for the BBC (TIME)
19 World Maps In The Style of Famous Artists (Brilliant Maps)
