Anyone's an expert

The [real] Guy J. Kewney, on his blog

There I was, waiting at BBC Television Centre, to be interviewed on the BBC’s News 24 TV channel.

I'd been hired as an expert commentator about matters relating to Apple, iPods, computer copyright, and the Beatles. And I was due on at 10.30, when the High Court judgement was due on the lawsuit where Apple Corps (the Beatles) has been suing Apple Computer (Steve Jobs).

- and here it's 10.29 so, yes, I'm somewhat anxious, because I'm still in reception, not in the studio. That's after one or two “Excuse me, but… do they know?” style queries with reception, asking if they have, indeed, told the studio I'm here. And they have. “Someone will be down for you,” I’m assured.

Am I ready for this fifteen seconds of fame? Oh, yes, I'm ready. I've spent the weekend researching the lawsuit. I’ve researched the real legal experts like Alice Graves, and I'm prepared to compare the iPod with a blank CD. At my normal rates, work like this would cost you a few hundred quid. But this being the BBC, I’m doing it for nothing – as most of us do, these days, in order that they can pay Jonathan Ross several million a year…

It is at this point, just about a minute before I'm due to go on, that anybody watching the channel would have been fascinated to see me introduced live on air, as the expert witness in the studio. Me? Not fascinated; astonished!

What would you feel, if while you were sitting in that rather chilly reception area, you suddenly saw yourself – not sitting in reception, but live, on TV? "A bit surprised?"

There were several surprising things about my interview. We'll ignore the fact that I wasn't giving it, and had not given it. We'll even gloss over the fact that, judging by my performance, English wasn't my first language, and that I didn't seem to know much about Apple Computer, online music, or the Beatles. People have accused me of all those things, at various stages of my career.

But let's admit it: of all the things you can say about me, one word that really has to be deleted from the list is this one: "Black." We're talking biometrics, here. We're talking about "twins separated at birth, only their mother could tell them apart"... NOT!

I'm not black. I'm not black on a startling scale; I'm fair-haired, blue-eyed, prominent-nosed, and with the sort of pale skin that makes my dermatologist wince each time I complain about an itchy mole. I'm a walking candidate for chronic sunburn damage. I’m really, really not black.

But the guy on screen - sorry, the "Guy Kewney" live, on screen, definitely was. Black. Also, he spoke with a French-sounding accent, and he seemed as baffled as I felt. At first, he seemed puzzled that anybody might imagine that the lawsuit had consequences, and suggested that people would still be able to download music from Internet cafes. But what about Apple? "I don't know. I’m not at all sure what I'm doing here," he admitted sadly, as they finally twigged that something was going badly wrong, and hustled him off the set.

The best part of the story? Check out the interview, as posted on YouTube; the cabbie's look of surprise at the beginning, and the BBC broadcaster's game attempt at making sense of what he's saying are hilarious.

The second best part--the Times of London piece about it.

It later emerged that the driver had been waiting for a client at the BBC Television Centre in West London, when a studio manager mistook him for the expert.

Confused but co-operative, he agreed to follow the manager to a studio, where he was promptly fitted with a microphone and placed in front of a camera. ...

When the driver was asked how the interview went, he replied: “Well, it was OK, but I was a bit rushed.”

He had been waiting at reception when the studio manager arrived to ask for Mr Kewney. The driver, whose visitor’s badge was marked with Mr Kewney’s name, raised his hand. According to Mr Kewney, the stage manager said: “To be honest, I did think it couldn’t be you. I mean, I’ve seen your picture on your website, and he didn’t look like you. So I asked him who he was, and he said, ‘Guy Kewney’ and I said, ‘Are you really Guy Kewney?’ and he said, ‘Yes’.”

The driver’s sang-froid slipped only when Ms Bowerman introduced him. In a video clip, which BBC staff can access through the corporation’s Jupiter cuttings system, a moment of realisation flashes across the man’s face. “Unfortunately we did make a mistake and the wrong guest was briefly interviewed on air before we cut to our reporter,” a spokeswoman said. “We apologise to viewers for any confusion.”

It is not the first time that the BBC has been embarrassed by a case of mistaken identity. Last year Rhodri Morgan, the First Minister of Wales, was mistaken for a cast member of Doctor Who when he was due to appear on the BBC Wales political show Dragon’s Eye.

It's interesting, if you read some of the coverage by the London tabloids, there's an underlying racial element; very much a sense of this black guy mistakenly taking a white man's place, and surprisingly bluffing his way through it.

Interview frame grab via LostRemote.