Simon McCoy: nine times everyone's favourite rogue newsreader lost all faith on live TV

Veteran newsreader Simon McCoy has been in the business for over three decades. Having worked his way up from Fleet Street News Agency and into his first role in broadcast journalism as a researcher at Thames News, McCoy is now the regular weekday presenter on BBC News between 2pm and 5pm. 

And for every breaking hard news story delivered to his desk, there's a dead donkey story that just can't be dropped.

Don't get us wrong - we're quivering in anticipation for next April, after the announcement that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be having their third child in said month. However, the prospective birth month of another prince or princess is one story McCoy would have rather sidestepped. "Clear your diaries," he told us yesterday on live TV, in a manner so deadpan it belongs in a morgue.

Like most of McCoy's greatest moments, the clip has gone viral. The newsreader appears to be an unlikely man of the people, evoking our apathetic times with a cacophony of sarky comments and exaggerated eye rolls - verabilising and visualising how we really feel in this time of rolling, televised news. Every gaffe just makes us fall a little bit more in love with him, and as such here are eight more classic McCoy moments. Prepare to clear your diary for next Valentine's Day - you have a date with McCoy planned now.

Royal baby wait

McCoy's indifference to royal baby news began right at the beginning, with the birth of Prince George. After a day of standing and waiting, McCoy's job was to read the news that there is no news – a pretty impossible task for a newsreader.

Whiplash

As his two colleagues have a chat over the top of him about the resurrection of Italian football, McCoy stays eerily silent. But the lovable rogue is just binding his time, and as they finish, he let's loose on an absolutely zinger about having whiplash over their back and forth repartee. Someone get this man on  Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow.

Paper-gate

This is really the ultimate McCoy, as the newsreader, po-faced as ever, reads the news while clutching a box of A4 printer paper. 

A BBC spokeswoman later explained: "This morning as Simon McCoy was preparing to introduce this story, instead of picking up his tablet to hold as he went to air, he mistakenly picked up a ream of paper that was sitting next to it.

"In the rush of live news, he didn't have an opportunity to swap the items, so simply went with it."

Stormy weather

Poor Elizabeth Glinka is an absolute trouper, resolutely keeping face while hit with a barrage of wind and rain as she reports outside Scotland Yard. But when faced with the tour de force that is Simon McCoy professionalism, she stands no chance. 

The 10 yard dash

The odd little movement - not quite a jog, nowhere near a run - that you pull when trying to catch a train on the Victoria line is rather embarrassing to make in public. But at least on the underground you know everyone behind you who saw it, will be long gone as you tootle away in the safe confines of the closing  doors.

When your weird little dance is beamed across the nation, its hard to save face. We've all been there McCoy - just not on national TV.

Dropping your career

You're live on TV and you hear a thud at your feet. Most of us would just ignore it and soldier on. But McCoy is McCoy and the thud must be seen to. Cut to a confused looking Ore Oduba, who styles the situation out like one of his Strictly Come Dancing salsas. But now we're back to McCoy, not one to be upstaged, who drops the mother-load of dad jokes and has us creasing.

Panda-man

McCoy starts off gravely enough announcing that the following VT may be proof of the world's best job. Then he proceeds to voice over a video of a man playing in a massive panda suit with other (real) panda's in a Chinese zoo so as to wheedle them off their reliance on humans. 

"There's so much you could say but I value my job," mumbles McCoy, as his bewildered tears drown him out . Do you though, do you really?

Surfing dogs

Here is McCoy breaking the world record for most deep sighs in a minute, as he reports on a story on the world dog surfing competition. "That's a shame, we've run out of pictures," he concludes.

No, this wasn't taken from Anchorman...

Office banter

If we had to invite any complete stranger in the world to our birthday pub sojourn it would have to be Simon McCoy. Here is ready-made proof of the top quality birthday banter that'll be on offer. "I don't what the weather was like in 1923?" Oh Simon, never change.