BBC Weatherman Gives One-Finger Salute on Air

BBC weathercaster Tomasz Schafernaker was caught live on-camera earlier this week giving his middle-finger reaction (known in German as the Stinkefinger) to a sarcastic introduction by the news anchor:



According to the UK Sun, this is not the first gaffe by the 31-year-old TV weatherman:

Last year he stumbled over his words in a live broadcast and forecast a "muddy sh*te" for Glastonbury instead of a "muddy site".

He was also forced to make an apology after referring to the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles of Scotland as "nowheresville" in a weather bulletin in February 2007.

Early this year Tomasz caused controversy when he posed without his top on for the cover of Active - a supplement in gay magazine, Attitude.

The Beeb itself reported its regrets:

"The News Channel presenter in the studio acknowledged a mistake had been made, and we apologise for any offence caused," a BBC spokesman said.

"Tomasz was not aware that he was on air, and whilst the gesture was only shown for a second, it was not acceptable."

The Guardian's MediaMonkey blog comments

And, you guessed it... Schafernaker again who couldn't stop laughing after BBC News presenter Simon McCoy – him again! – suggested he had a "frozen ball". "Just the one," replied TS. Schafernaker, who as well as predicting warm fronts has quite an impressive front himself (as revealed in Attitude magazine earlier this year) has also been known to break into song, read out the wrong forecast and occasionally make no sense whatsoever.