BBC Look North is a current affairs program about all kinds of news in the region. Peter Levy has been doing the honors there for almost a quarter of a century. This time the broadcast was about decorating the Christmas tree. Viewers could let us know whether they thought it was too early to decorate a tree now, or submit photos of their already decorated tree.
Peter Levy has been presenting the program for 23 years. © BBC
In between, Levy said he had already decorated a Christmas tree at home with colored lights, pine cones and fake snow. It was a mini version, because the tree is only 35 centimeters high. The text in his script referred to this: “I only have a little one, but he was standing up over the weekend,” he said.
As the man spoke the words, he immediately knew that the people on the other side of the screen were doubled over with laughter. Levy couldn’t hold back his laughter either. “Because the people here in the studio are also laughing. It gets worse when people laugh,” he apologized to the viewers. “I was definitely talking about my Christmas tree.”
Afterwards the funny statement remained one running gag throughout the broadcast. When the weatherman came into view a little later, he asked Levy when he would show a photo of his ‘special little tree’. The images appeared on social media in recent days, where they have collectively received more than 4.7 million views.
Not for the first time
Was the text deliberately written that way? We don’t know that. The fact is that Peter Levy has made such an ambiguous comment in the past. During an item about holes in asphalt roads, he laughed when he asked viewers ‘how big their hole is’. It is not known whether any complaints have been received by the BBC.