Yesterday morning at about 8:15, Andy Cooney messaged me to say that he would be travelling with Luke to Preston for our pitch to Viddyoze.

I replied with a few messages, in which I poked fun at Luke, and described the north of England as “teeming with infection.”

Obviously this is comedy. London is teeming with infection too, it’s just that we enjoy special treatment from Westminster. Plus, our Coronavirus is part of a progressive, liberal, global culture. It’s more fashionable. And it subsidises the rest of the UK’s coronavirus.

Later that day, Martin Reed replied to my conversation with Andy. He posted a highlighted screen-grab of my “teeming with infection” remark and to my horror I realised the conversation with Andy had actually been in the pitch team chat room.

I get caught out by the “room-that-I-thought-was-a-conversation” mistake roughly once every six months. I have a near miss roughly every day. I hope it happens to other people too. It’s an online equivalent of the hot mic, which is where someone’s words are inadvertently recorded or broadcast from the mic they’re wearing. Perhaps you’ll be interested to hear about some documented examples.

  • In 1984 - at the height of the Cold War - Ronald Reagan was about to appear on a radio interview and, as a soundcheck, he said "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." His comment was not appreciated in Moscow.

  • In Rio de Janeiro in 2001, Britney Spears was about to step out in front of her largest ever concert audience. She complained about the organization of her entourage around the stage, and her mic was broadcasting to the waiting crowd of 170,000 people. She said, "Don't tell me that they're just letting the audience just fucking stand out there like that. Oh my God! This is retarded.”

  • In 2013 a British couple from the UK used a videographer who gave them the unedited version of their recordings. This is sad, absurd and shocking in equal measure, but on the bright side the guy’s reputation is ruined. The bride was Jewish, and the videographer was heard on the tapes saying, “she’s not a very attractive bride at all,” “Jewish women are cows,” “they think they’re better than everyone else because they’re from Israel,” and “I don’t think I blame Hitler.”

  • In 2015 two male Canadian police officers flew a helicopter over half of Winnipeg. A switch was accidentally operated in the cockpit, because most of the men’s private conversation was broadcast over the helicopter PA, which is normally used to control crowds. The content was inappropriate, and covered topics including body hair and blow jobs.

I’ve tried to come up with something, but I can’t wrap up with any useful advice. I suppose whatever you accidentally say publicly about your boss and half your colleagues, hopefully it could have been worse.

Have a good weekend.