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The Weekly Round-Up: 19.05.06
Will the real Guy Kewney please stand up...

By silicon.com

Published: Friday 19 May 2006

There's really only one place to begin this week and that's with the farce at the BBC which saw BBC News 24 interview an entirely clueless member of the public, with a poor grasp of English, live on air about last week's ruling in the Apple v Apple court case.

As the Round-Up is sure many of you are aware, the problem started when the BBC asked a veteran IT journo and blogger by the name of Guy Kewney to come in and be a talking head about the Apple verdict - which found in favour of the computer maker, rather than The Beatles (it's not been the best of times for Paul McCartney, what with one thing and another).

Kewney duly obliged and was kept waiting in the reception area at Television Centre until a producer was sent to him.

Unfortunately the misguided producer reportedly went to the wrong reception area where, as terrible luck would have it, there was another man by the name of Guy sat waiting.

Even if you are the one person who missed this story this week, you can probably guess what happened next.

After confirming his first name, the 'wrong Guy' followed the producer upstairs and obviously also played ball when they started to fit a microphone to his lapel and do tests for sound levels. Because minutes later he was on camera, doing live television.

The real magic happened when the anchorwoman, Karen Bowerman, introduced her guest: "Guy Kewney is editor of the technology website Newswireless... "

At this point Guy - real surname Goma - broke into a slight sweat and pulled an expression which the Round-Up has only ever seen on a baby's face shortly before it needed to be changed.

Asked whether he was surprised by 'the verdict', Goma, rather understandably said he was indeed "very surprised".

No kidding. He was live on the BBC, of course he was surprised.

"I was not expecting that," he added, quite probably talking about his immediate predicament rather than any court ruling which he knew little or nothing about.

"When I came they told me something else and I am coming," he went on to say, understandably confused and by this stage quite clearly talking about his shock media appearance.

Undeterred by a guest who was clearly at odds with the situation the BBC's Bowerman continued with the interview, presumably while the real Guy Kewney sat downstairs in the reception tutting and looking at his watch. Or perhaps watching the scene unfold live on a plasma screen, jaw by that stage on the ground, no doubt.

Goma stumbled with a creditable bravery through two more very garbled answers before the anchorwoman cut to another talking head outside the law courts where the punch line to this whole debacle was delivered.

"Well I think as we just heard there it comes as something of a shock... " he began, giving credence to words of a man who had just conducted possibly the worst ever interview, through no fault of his own.

The fact the anchorwoman didn't immediately change tack, or perhaps didn't notice or care that something was going horribly wrong, or that the item was staged in the manner it was and that rolling news is so clearly and inherently disposable raises many questions about its value.

The cruellest irony is that if the item had included the real Guy Kewney nobody would have been at all interested. It would have been just another talking head on another 30 second slot on another rolling news item, quite possibly squeezed in between stories about the water shortage in Kent and the cabinet reshuffle.

But because it had descended into farce the fates would have it that an army of whistle-blowers were watching.

And so a media frenzy started, with many of the papers claiming Guy Goma was a West African taxi driver who had only been there to pick up Guy Kewney. Before his name was known this seemed the most plausible explanation to many.

At which point the Round-Up finds itself wondering about some pretty awful stereotyping by the mainstream media.

It later transpired that Goma was actually an IT grad at the BBC for a job interview (hooray, he's a techie!). Hence he wouldn't have questioned it when told he was 'being interviewed' and may have assumed the cameras and microphones were just the way the BBC did job interviews. They are a broadcaster after all. They probably have more cameras and studios than they know what to do with. So why not film job interviews?

Only as the item went on air did the horrible truth strike Goma who clearly decided it was better to soldier on than admit the truth live on television.

You can watch the interview here, courtesy of the lovely people at the Daily Mail.

But while Guy Goma has enjoyed a week in the spotlight, Guy Kewney, the also-ran in this farce, has expressed some annoyance at the way his 30 seconds was stolen by the hapless impersonator from the Congo.

"I was really looking forward to doing the interview," wrote Kewney on his blog. "Never mind the glory of being on the BBC, what about the enhancement such an interview offers to your professional reputation? ...all gone."

He added magnanimously: "The unworthy thought does persist that perhaps those producers don't care much about the fact that my reputation was completely shredded by the way they put up an ignoramus and claimed he was me."

Before wondering whether it was fair to surmise that "the BBC had made a complete arse of itself".

The Round-Up thinks that would be a very fair assessment.

Of the confusion over Guy Goma's profession, Kewney wrote: "I have constantly tried to explain to everybody he isn't a taxi driver."

By "constantly tried to explain" Kewney is perhaps referring to this mention in his blog: "the cab driver who lectures on iPods", or possibly this one: "watch the classic moment, where the cab driver realises that he is on air". Or maybe this one: "The story of how the BBC managed to interview a black taxi driver..."



It's all a bit of a mess really.

So for anybody wondering why they bother to pay their licence fee at this point the Round-Up has two words for you: Jonathan Ross.

The TV chat show host may not know his Rs from his elbow (or be able to pronounce them at least) but it's undeniable that he comes across as a bloody nice bloke. And so he proved this week when he selflessly gave up his time to host an event at the BT Tower launching an interactive campaign to profile the many great works of the Ealing film studios.

Sensing a tenuous tech angle amid such an interesting story we sent a reporter along to cover the event. (We really must warn you though, before you click on the link, Ross's suit may offend the sensibilities of readers who are easily shocked.)

At one point Ross made light of his speech impediment by admitting he perhaps wasn't the best person to talk about J Arthur Rank.

Think about it.



Moving on but back to the subject of taxi drivers, who it transpires we weren't actually talking about earlier at all, the Round-Up read a worrying article this week about the effect in-car satellite navigation is having on London's proud taxi drivers.

Apparently 'the knowledge' - which requires would-be taxi drivers to memorise the street plan of London and perfect the art of banal conversation - may soon be a thing of the past as more and more are apparently turning to sat-nav systems to save them the inconvenience of having to have the first clue about where they are going.

Of course anybody who has actually asked to be taken by black taxi to anywhere that isn't a mainline station or a well known London landmark may at this point be a little incredulously questioning the level of 'knowledge' that exists currently.

But it seems matters may worsen - if, by worsen, the article in question means technology may eventually consign questions such as 'remind me, is that the left turn off...' and 'which route would you normally take to... ' a thing of the past.

However, before the Round-Up's words get Silicon Towers blacklisted as a 'no pick up' zone by taxi drivers across the capital it should be pointed out that the majority of drivers, while a little rusty on some destinations - and prone to charging the best part of a week's salary to go four miles - are generally salt-of-the-earth, honest-as-the-day-is-long types.

The Round-Up must commend one driver in particular who recently brought the Round-Up's mobile phone back after it had been left in the back of a taxi (yet again). The heroic knight of the road even refused payment for the kind gesture - so hats off to our capital's fleet of hard-working cabbies. We love you really.



Loosely on the same subject, anybody who has ever had their mobile phone stolen knows how frustrating it can be.

It's happened to the Round-Up three times - once by a yob in a Burberry cap and twice by the beer fairies.

(The Round-Up suspects the 'yob' heard that mobile phones have a 'hash'-key and that sounded like the kind of speed-dial he wanted a piece of).

Of course once it's happened you then have to go through the process of calling your service provider (which is considerably less easy when you no longer have your phone), reporting it stolen and getting your SIM card blocked.

You then have to consider phoning the police and demanding they put up road blocks and cancel all leave until the handset is discovered, before realising you really can't be bothered initiating a level of disinterest rivalled only in nature by a panda's libido.

"Your phone's been stolen you say sir. Well hang on while we dispatch a squad car to you immediately. We'll pull somebody off a murder investigation or something similarly trifling."

One unlucky mobile phone user recently had his phone stolen while he was in the jungle in Borneo. Unfortunately for him calling Vodafone straight away to report it stolen was not such an easy task and during an eight day period the thief made 200 calls per day, running up a bill of £2,800 (which at an average of £1.75 per call, by the Round-Up's calculations, isn't a bad advert for Vodafone's roaming charges or international coverage).

However, Tim Lacey who was reportedly in Borneo with Operation Raleigh, has been told he will have to pay the bill because the phone wasn't reported stolen.

Ouch!

Vodafone issued this statement: "Vodafone apologises for any frustration experienced by Mr Lacey. However, we continue to urge our customers to think of their phone as a valuable item, like a wallet or purse.

"We would also like to remind all our customers that they need to report any stolen items to us immediately as until this notification is received, the customer may still be liable for any charges incurred."

Ouch again.



And finally, just as you thought the UK was going to be consumed by an IT skills crisis who should ride into town to save the day but, that's right, you guessed it, Girls Aloud.

(The Round-Up has just noticed that the name of the all-girl pop group sounds like it means girls are permitted, as in 'allowed', when you say it, but written down it looks like it refers to girls who are making noise, as in 'aloud'. Isn't that clever? It works on two levels.)

One of the girls from the band recently visited her old school, Holy Spirit Primary School in Runcorn, where there is an active Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G) project running.

The initiative aims to get girls interested in IT by building exercises around things which girls are apparently interested in, such as fashion and celebrities.

The idea is that the girls will be so busy writing about pop music in word processing software and designing clothes with art packages that they won't stop to realise 'hang on a minute, we're doing IT'.

So back to Girls Aloud and the appearance of Nicola Roberts (who is also arguably, in many people's opinion, among the top five most attractive girls in the... wait for it... band).

Roberts visited the school to meet the pupils and let them bask in her celebrity and then the CC4G group were given the task of using desktop publishing tools to put together a newsletter documenting the visitation.

It's quite a good idea really. The Round-Up assumes the boys were left to run around in the playground, play football and fight.



Until next week, have fun. And if you're ever being mic'd up in a TV studio, ask yourself whether that's really where you're meant to be.

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