alt.hn

5/8/2026 at 7:36:45 PM

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

by nxobject

5/10/2026 at 11:17:24 PM

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.

by ebbi

5/11/2026 at 3:36:46 AM

On South African national TV the interviewee's chair broke. Still cracks me up to this day. https://youtu.be/XnHIeXQCfog?si=u4kzKfPLKSNGbBf_

by mmsimanga

5/11/2026 at 8:39:27 AM

Because of their composure, it almost looks like an intended format: you have 20 seconds to make your point before the chair collapses.

by dude250711

5/11/2026 at 4:54:25 PM

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.

by nxobject

5/11/2026 at 12:33:33 PM

The caption declaring him chairperson is absolutely perfect.

by opium_tea

5/11/2026 at 8:48:29 AM

That gave me a good laugh on a Monday morning. Thanks.

by hermitcrab

5/11/2026 at 6:18:46 AM

There must have been some maintenance crew who had been asking for a bigger budget for months...

I wonder if they assisted the chairs downfall...

by londons_explore

5/10/2026 at 11:22:33 PM

This 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...

by zdw

5/11/2026 at 2:44:53 AM

I 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...

by toast0

5/11/2026 at 10:57:26 AM

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?

by swores

5/11/2026 at 2:04:36 PM

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.

by haritha-j

5/11/2026 at 3:46:42 PM

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.

by adjejmxbdjdn

5/12/2026 at 9:18:14 AM

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.

by haritha-j

5/11/2026 at 3:11:33 PM

So you would want to make the large organization that you’re hoping to work for look bad?

by whycome

5/11/2026 at 3:31:03 PM

i would agree if it weren’t for his presence on live TV! at that point it seems too awkward and late to mention something

by bstsb

5/11/2026 at 4:52:38 PM

I do think about what I would have done – maybe I would quietly leaned into the ear of the presenter and mentioned something.

But, also, I wouldn't take any chances if I was trying to get hired there...

by nxobject

5/11/2026 at 3:49:45 PM

No. This is the masterclass in keeping your cool during a BBC interview:

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.

by sandworm101

5/11/2026 at 6:08:12 PM

Really? I'm pretty unimpressed. I hope I would do better and "roll with it" more if my kids did that to me. Maybe I overestimate myself.

by strix_varius

5/11/2026 at 12:59:16 AM

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.

by rchaud

5/11/2026 at 6:40:41 AM

[dead]

by aaron695

5/11/2026 at 12:41:33 PM

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.

by meken

5/8/2026 at 8:04:16 PM

For those without a NYT subscription:

https://archive.is/xZgBI#selection-505.0-505.55

by rmason

5/10/2026 at 11:46:22 PM

But this needs a Cloudflare subscription, or something? I can't open it either. :)

by binaryturtle

5/11/2026 at 3:34:12 PM

it’s a fake Cloudflare interstitial, actually using reCAPTCHA. seems like the owner has some sort of vendetta against Cloudflare after the DNS stuff

by bstsb

5/11/2026 at 4:43:26 PM

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...

by dotBen

5/11/2026 at 8:51:02 PM

The "idea" behind it I guess is to make people angry at Cloudflare and not realize it's not CF's doing.

by rendx

5/11/2026 at 8:45:33 AM

try vpn. i think archive.is blocks at least Finland

by lamonade

5/11/2026 at 11:44:50 AM

"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.

by baobabKoodaa

5/11/2026 at 2:38:51 PM

> 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.

by spenczar5

5/11/2026 at 3:12:00 AM

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.

by manyturtles

5/11/2026 at 8:51:11 AM

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.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VO0kaSHAOSE

by fakedang

5/11/2026 at 6:16:10 PM

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.

by Findecanor

5/11/2026 at 12:06:03 AM

Related HN posted earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48074260

A book was released…

by heldrida

5/11/2026 at 6:30:01 AM

Guy and Elliott Gotkine interviewed about the book

https://youtu.be/VO0kaSHAOSE

by zoenolan

5/11/2026 at 2:48:40 PM

Providing the last name of Elliott Gotkine but not Guy--thus continuing the ambiguity of which Guy is being interviewed--is a nice touch

by anonymars

5/11/2026 at 12:40:33 AM

[dead]

by huflungdung

5/11/2026 at 3:50:04 PM

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.

by travelmalta

5/11/2026 at 6:18:05 AM

Did he eventually get the job he was initially applying?

by dagi3d

5/11/2026 at 6:47:57 AM

No, Guy Kewney got it.

by AlecSchueler

5/11/2026 at 6:23:59 AM

According to the article, no.

by decimalenough

5/11/2026 at 7:46:25 AM

They didn't give him the job in the end!

by PUSH_AX

5/12/2026 at 3:36:28 AM

Archive.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.

by FarMcKon

5/11/2026 at 12:53:41 AM

[flagged]

by ares623

5/11/2026 at 1:12:45 AM

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.

by recursive

5/11/2026 at 1:56:53 AM

He didn't boil a lake in the process

by DoktorDelta

5/11/2026 at 4:27:49 PM

Not a great line of argument. Humans are producing plenty of heat.

by recursive

5/11/2026 at 8:56:04 AM

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".

by renticulous

5/11/2026 at 9:41:38 AM

Oh 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.

by GJim