BBC News presenter Shaun Ley was forced to pause a live broadcast as he struggled to suppress a sneeze.
The popular newsreader, 52, regularly works as the weekday evening presenter while occasionally hosting the afternoon news.
And on Tuesday, Shaun held the reins amid a number of high-profile reports from Downing Street.
(Namely that Prime Minister and Chancellor had been fined for they themselves had introduced.)
But as is the nature of live television, you can’t expect things to run smoothly all the time – and viewers got a giggle out of watching Shaun stop his report so he could sneeze.
Or at least, he tried to.
In the clip, Shaun is in the middle of a report about the Downing Street controversy and is about to quote Liberal Democrats MP Ed Davies when he stops and tells audiences: ‘Excuse me, I’m about to sneeze.’
Shaun brings his hand to his mouth and takes in a deep breath – and then there is about three seconds of silence as the world watches and waits for Shaun to sneeze.
Looking slightly sheepish, Shaun then brings his hand down from his mouth and looks at the camera with an apologetic smile before saying: ‘I think I’ve got away with it.’
A video of the awkward moment was posted to Twitter by user Scott Bryan who said it was ‘the most British thing I have ever seen,’ and it quickly went viral.
Plus, as one person duly pointed out, it wasn’t Shaun’s ‘first rodeo’ – the presenter has been sneezing on air semi-regularly for a while, it seems.
Twitter user James Rowe shared a montage of Shaun sneezing while presenting the news, including while reporting on Ukraine, Boris Johnson and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mostly the sneeze sneaks out mid-sentence, sometimes with Shaun seeming totally surprised, while other times he apologises and says he was ‘trying to suppress it’.
The supercut has proved massively popular, with creator James even getting a shout out on BBC Radio 1 on Wednesday morning – though Shaun himself has yet to respond.
It’s not the first time Shaun has made headlines rather than reporting on them: last summer the presenter went viral as he was found to be as well as a suit jacket and tie.
On the hottest day of the year, Shaun appeared to be dressed as normal as he presented the news, until a camera panned back to show that he was wearing far more casual clothes.
One laughed this week: ‘Is BBC news reader Shaun Ley keeping his cool by wearing shorts? And if so, were viewers meant to find out?’
Another very accurately pointed out we’re all ones to laugh, as they wrote: ‘It’s only what everyone’s been doing for the past year on their zoom calls!’
