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Guy Goma's Accidental BBC Interview Lives on After 20 Years
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-goma-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.GiwW.3byWfPAySofD&smid=nytcore-android-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-go...
https://archive.is/xZgBI https://archive.is/xZgBI
- rmason 5mo agoFor those without a NYT subscription: https://archive.is/xZgBI#selection-505.0-505.55 https://archive.is/xZgBI#selection-505.0-505.55
- binaryturtle 5mo agoBut this needs a Cloudflare subscription, or something? I can't open it either. :)
- lamonade 5mo agotry vpn. i think archive.is blocks at least Finland
- baobabKoodaa 5mo ago"blocks" is a generous way of putting it. it puts you into an infinite recaptcha loop. i would rather just see a message saying i am blocked.
- bstsb 5mo agoit’s a fake Cloudflare interstitial, actually using reCAPTCHA. seems like the owner has some sort of vendetta against Cloudflare after the DNS stuff
- cocoacat 5mo agogift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-goma-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.JRky.r9z0Lmg3wIPF&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-go...
- sxzygz 5mo agoThe interview itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Y2uQn_wvc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Y2uQn_wvc
- helsinkiandrew 5mo agoYou can see his terror on his face and the lip trembling at his sudden realization somethings gone wrong at 24 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Y2uQn_wvc&t=24s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Y2uQn_wvc&t=24s
- larntz 5mo agoHe didn't get the job. :(
- ebbi 5mo agoHis 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.
- zdw 5mo agoThis seems to have happened about a year before "The IT Crowd" episode "Smoke and Mirrors" aired. In that episode Moss, one of the IT denizens, goes to a TV studio where he is mistakenly put on a news program and interviewed about a war. I wonder if they're related...
- bgc 5mo agoThat episode is indeed based on this event: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1111175/trivia/?ref_=tt_dyk_trv https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1111175/trivia/?ref_=tt_dyk_trv
- Markoff 5mo agohere is the sketch from IT Crowd if anyone's wondering https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm2TITZkrcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm2TITZkrcE
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- punkbit 5mo agoRelated HN posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074260 A book was released…
- huflungdung 5mo ago[dead]
- zoenolan 5mo agoGuy and Elliott Gotkine interviewed about the book https://youtu.be/VO0kaSHAOSE https://youtu.be/VO0kaSHAOSE
- anonymars 5mo agoProviding the last name of Elliott Gotkine but not Guy--thus continuing the ambiguity of which Guy is being interviewed--is a nice touch
- ares623 5mo ago[flagged]
- recursive 5mo agoWe'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.
- DoktorDelta 5mo agoHe didn't boil a lake in the process
- recursive 5mo agoNot a great line of argument. Humans are producing plenty of heat.
- rchaud 5mo agoOne 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.
- aaron695 5mo ago[dead]
- mkoryak 5mo agoGift nyt link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-goma-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.hlA.GiwW.3byWfPAySofD&smid=nytcore-android-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/06/business/media/bbc-guy-go...
- toast0 5mo agoI hadn't seen or heard of this one. It reminds me a bit of this classic c-span moment: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/12/16/371232190/brothers-on-c-span-divided-by-politics-united-in-mortification-by-moms-call https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/12/16/371232190...
- swores 5mo agoAre 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?
- manyturtles 5mo agoI 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.
- fakedang 5mo agoWell 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. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VO0kaSHAOSE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VO0kaSHAOSE
- Findecanor 5mo agoHe 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.
- mmsimanga 5mo agoOn South African national TV the interviewee's chair broke. Still cracks me up to this day. https://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog?si=u4kzKfPLKSNGbBf_ https://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog?si=u4kzKfPLKSNGbBf_
- londons_explore 5mo agoThere must have been some maintenance crew who had been asking for a bigger budget for months... I wonder if they assisted the chairs downfall...
- dude250711 5mo agoBecause of their composure, it almost looks like an intended format: you have 20 seconds to make your point before the chair collapses.
- nxobject 5mo agoHonestly? 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.
- hermitcrab 5mo agoThat gave me a good laugh on a Monday morning. Thanks.
- opium_tea 5mo agoThe caption declaring him chairperson is absolutely perfect.
- dagi3d 5mo agoDid he eventually get the job he was initially applying?
- decimalenough 5mo agoAccording to the article, no.
- AlecSchueler 5mo agoNo, Guy Kewney got it.
- PUSH_AX 5mo agoThey didn't give him the job in the end!
- renticulous 5mo agoJust 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".
- GJim 5mo agoOh dear. 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.
- meken 5mo agoLove 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.
- haritha-j 5mo agoThery 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.
- whycome 5mo agoSo you would want to make the large organization that you’re hoping to work for look bad?
- bstsb 5mo agoi would agree if it weren’t for his presence on live TV! at that point it seems too awkward and late to mention something
- adjejmxbdjdn 5mo agoThe 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.
- haritha-j 5mo agoThe 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.
- sandworm101 5mo agoNo. This is the masterclass in keeping your cool during a BBC interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh4f9AYRCZY The old people here might remember the term "to Kramer into a room", which definitely applies to this clip.
- spenczar5 5mo ago> 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.
- travelmalta 5mo agoHe'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.
- FarMcKon 5mo agoArchive.is has some kind of phone tracking CAPTCHA. So now what, a phone is proof of humanity? How is that not defeated by botfarms in an hour, alongside tracking you, as well as a horrible UX? I hate modern surveillance capitalism.