MUCH MUCH LOWER

I knew I was in serious trouble on Friday morning. Already reeling from my dressing down the previous day, I spotted something even more unnerving: beaming out from the screen of the media managers I saw the "interview" of my mystery guest running. This meant it was being dubbed from one server to another; in effect, copied.

"What's going on?" I asked.
"Someone in the politics department asked for it," they said.
An editor, a director, a boss? "One of us," they reassuringly told me.

If word had spread to the other side of London already, I thought, it's only a matter of time before the world and his wife knows. I mailed my friend Tobi. This is what I wrote:

"Okay, so I've just seen the recording of my mystery man interview from Monday being sent over to people at our Millbank studios. From what I can gather, word has spread, and my cock-up is, as we speak, going viral. I can just see it, in a few weeks time, that this clip will become like the tasty-cum e-mail, or the "I kiss you man" from Turkey. Don't know whether to laugh or cry."

My fears were prescient. A few hours later I was warned that my faux pas was to be spread over the weekend papers. Some kind soul even forwarded the video footage to a paper. It's kindly made the footage available for download from its site.

As I pondered the joys that await me at work tomorrow morning, I was reminded of one of my favourite films: Election. In it, Matthew Broderick schemes against Reese Witherspoon, who's standing for school president.

At first, the story just makes the local papers. Then the wires pick it up and it goes global. No doubt mailboxes from Washington to Ouagadougou are already stuffed with this story, primed and ready for opening on Monday morning. I am so not looking forward to going into work tomorrow.