His facial expression when the presenter was introducing 'him' is absolute gold! When I first watched it, I actually thought it was a skit - it being BBC, the animated facial reactions, the presenter trying to navigate his (non)-answers.
Honestly? A political interview show with gags like that would lighten things up. A few "crime is everywhere!!!" politicians would do very well with a whoopie cushion.
Are you just sharing "this is something else on a TV program that amused me", or am I being dense in my failing to spot anything that's similar between the two situations?
One of the first viral videos in the early years of Youtube. This was at a time when the Internet was just small enough that a single video could organically circulate around the whole world and be universally appreciated for its ridiculous yet endearing nature, by adults and kids alike.
Thery claim this is a masterclass in how to keep your cool under pressure, but that really doesn't appear to be the case? Surely, if you realise you're not the person that's supposed to be interviewed, the correct thing to do would be to make the presenter aware of this rather than mislead the audience? not saying this is not a good response or that I would've done better, but to herald this is as the correct course of action seems a bit far.
The entire interview went by and no one realized anything was wrong.
I’m not sure how a disruption of a live interview would be any better, especially given that he only realized something had gone wrong when the presenter was introducing him on live TV.
The live interview was already disrupted when they started interviewing a random person as an expert. Everyone watching being misled, to me, is a bigger disruption to the interview than admitting something is wrong.
IMO the best thing to say is something along the lines of "I think there's been a bit of a mix-up, I'm not the person you think I am, but if you want my two cents anyway ... ".
Obviously in reality I would've fumbled worse than this guy did, its easy to think things through with the benefit of not having the pressure of being put on the spot on live TV.
Love the story and the article. The only nit I have with it:
> “His answers are… understandable, and maybe in some ways more digestible than we would get from an expert,” he said.
This does not reflect his actual responses? The interviewer keys off his most emphatic sounding words to keep the conversation flowing, but his answers are generally inscrutable.
He did a great job given the cards he was dealt though.
I'm familiar with the beef he has with CF, but why put up the fake cloudflare interstitial to me the end user who is just trying to use his service. I remain confused...
I wish I could have seen Guy Kewney's face when he saw this. Sadly now passed, he had a charmingly irreverent sense of humor around Ziff-Davis UK back in the day.
Well he didn't take it lightly and was very upset. They apparently did a pre-recorded version of his answers that the producers of that segment specifically told the night shift to air online, but the night shift didn't, which further exasperated him.
He passed from metastasised colon cancer, apparently.
That is the most common cancer and too often gets undiscovered before it has spread to other organs. I recommend everyone from age 45 to get a colonoscopy every ten years to nip any polyps before they develop.
> A correction was made on May 6, 2026: An earlier version of this article misstated the country where Guy Goma grew up. He is from the Republic of Congo, not the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Right guy, wrong Congo! You can't even make this stuff up.
He's had a book written on this now. That's great but I'd like a book about Guy Kewney instead. The guy was a genius. I remember reading his columns in the computer magazines, a real inspiration.
We're human supremacists. We would take risks to rescue stranded hikers, but not as much to rescue a stranded e bike. We eat animals but not humans. Humans are special to humans.
Just goes onto show how fragile the trust network between humans is overall. Today, journalism is all about "trusted sources", "official sources", "my birdie told me".
If you bothered to read the story behind this, you would know the chap had the same name as the 'real' person being interviewed who was waiting in a different reception area. Our man got called forward by mistake, he was a quiet chap who didn't want to rock the boat and so (very amusingly) got interviewed by an unknowing presenter.
To claim this is about fragile trust, rather than a silly mistake, is bollocks.
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