Colm O'Regan: Taking a chance like nobody's watching — impossible these days

Coldplay couple: caught in a moment

• “What I tell you about playing them away games?” - Avon Barksdale, The Wire S3 Episode 11.

The Wire has a quote for everything. In this case a regretful Baltimore gangster Stringer has been cheated by State Senator Clay Davis who took his bribes but didn’t give him building permits. And now his friend Avon is I told you so-ing him.

“They saw your ghetto ass coming from miles away”, he says.

The same after-the-fact advice might be given to Andy Byron who appeared on the Jumbotron at a Coldplay concert, in a romantic clinch with his ‘Head of People’.

We all saw his CEO ass from miles away. What Stringer Bell and Andy Byron have in common is that they are unprepared for the different world they find themselves in. Stringer, dealing with a politician; Andy Byron realising that EVERYTHING is on camera now.

I don’t have any sympathy for him but I can imagine he must consider it a little unfair. He’s just trying to have an affair. Is it too much to ask that it doesn’t go all around the world?

In a different era, Andy Byron’s namesake Lord could have ridden everyone at that concert and all the members of Coldplay and probably might have got away with it.

Lord Byron got into plenty of trouble but there wasn’t enough parchment in London to detail it all. 

This other guy? Jeez you get into one squeeze with your head of HR and it appears on every screen in the world. 

It’s remarkable that you can be CEO and completely fluent in risk assessment but not consider the possibility of being on a big screen at a concert by a band who have a song that is literally called ‘The Jumbotron Song’... where Chris Martin improvises music based on who appears on a giant big screen.

Even at matches, people are ready for it. The most disconsolate fan, their team being bate out the door, will still go nuts with joy and excitement if they themselves on the big screen. 

Some will sacrifice being able to see themselves by staring down the barrel of the camera.

And they achieve immortality. That guy in the Brendan O’Connor show audience who points at the camera with perfect timing. 

Mick McCarthy’s pitch-side lantern-jawed smile has been played millions of times now to the turn of George Michael’s Careless Whisper. 

In fact it’s likely that’s the first time anyone will hear the song Careless Whisper, George Michael, and Mick McCarthy bound together in perpetuity.

Others hopefully will never know their fame. Like the man in the  Winning Streak audience who was clapping so enthusiastically, he hurt his own thumb. That’s up on YouTube forever now, next to Andy Byron. The video is called ‘The Man Who Hurt His Hand Clapping’.

It’s weird watching yourself recorded unbeknownst.

Frequently a privilege reserved for shoplifters and others in trouble, we are increasingly watching ourselves back. I know we have a camera out the front... yet I forget. 

I watched it back recently to see whether a parcel might have been horsed into the green bin or not. 

The parcel remains unaccounted for. But I did see myself and poor posture and my bald spot, muttering to myself while looking in the boot of the car. 

Giving out about lights switched on and doors left open. Pure, unguarded me. Seeing myself as others saw me.

Andy Byron was placed on administrative leave and later resigned. Probably not for infidelity. But for getting caught. To quote Slim Charles in The Wire. Maybe he “ain’t cut out to be no CEO”.

To come back he will take the ‘key learnings’: namely that with phones, drones, Jumbotrons and CCTV, we may no longer be able to dance or take a chance like no one’s watching.

As stated previously, Astronomer is committed to the values and culture that have guided us since our founding. Our leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met.

Andy Byron has tendered his resignation, and… pic.twitter.com/aTTUhnnyVz

— Astronomer (@astronomerio) July 19, 2025