If there is one thing that I remember vividly about my grandmother, who was taken from us far too soon, it was her preference to caveat anything that she, in her words, “did not want to jinx” with the words “touch wood”. After having said these two words, she would then desperately reach for and touch something made of wood. Nothing else would suffice. As her mobility became severely restricted, she would reach for a book on her bedside table, which, she would quickly remind you, was made of wood.

She believed that, by uttering these two words and then touching wood, she would prevent a statement of confidence from bringing her bad luck. Well, maybe the two partners at PwC who were present at this year’s yearly Academy Award ceremony – better known as the Oscars – and were responsible for ensuring that the correct winners were announced should also have heeded this advice. Let me explain: on February 24, two days before the Oscars, the Huffington Post ran an article under the headline ‘What would happen if a presenter announced the wrong winner at the Oscars?’ Explaining the process to the publication, one of the PwC partners said: “It’s him checking me and me checking him, and we do it multiple times against each other to make sure that, when we leave and are ultimately handing the envelopes to someone, we’re very confident they’re getting the right envelopes and the contents in them are accurate.” Throughout the transmission, the two partners were stationed on opposite sides backstage. They would have memorised the names of the winners, thus (well, that is what the theory holds) preventing the need for them to list the winners on any document that could land in the wrong hands. As the evening progresses, the partners ensure that every category’s presentation is factual. Should a presenter declare a false winner for any reason, they are prepared to tell the nearest stage manager, who will immediately alert the show’s producers. So, that is the process.

Does this remind you of anything? Famous last words, perhaps? Speaking to the Huffington Post about the possibility of the wrong winner being announced, the partners say that “the exact procedure is unknown because no mistake of that kind has been made in the Oscars’ 88-year history.” It is “near impossible” that this will happen, the partners are quoted as saying in other pre-Oscars interviews. But what if this did happen? “We would make sure that the correct person was known very quickly. Whether that entails stopping the show, us walking onstage, us signalling to the stage manager – that’s really a game-time decision, if something like that were to happen. Again, it’s so unlikely.” The Huffington Post contacted the Oscars publicist for details about what exactly would unfold if a mistake was made. “I’ll be in touch,” he said in response. He has not been in touch. Surprised?

Just in case you believed that a similar scenario did not occur in the Oscars’ 88-year history, it actually did. In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr was given the incorrect envelope. Davis was presenting the Best Adaptation or the Treatment Score, but ended up announcing the Best Original Score recipient instead. “They gave me the wrong envelope?” he asked on realising what had just happened. Surprisingly, this was not noticed by this year’s presenters. Yes, there were two this year. A PwC representative (I am not sure if it was a partner) quickly emerged to hand him the correct information. “Wait till the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) hears about this!” Davis is said to have joked. This was not the only error of the night – the other involved a filmmaker who is still very much alive being featured in a sequence celebrating industry figures who had died in the previous 12 months.

But to return to the now infamous 2017 event – since there were only two partners and one handed over the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty, one can but await the ensuing implementation of that golden rule of business. (I must hasten to add that this is the golden rule according to Dilbert, who is famous for having said that “there is only a singular rule in business – a golden rule: establish blame.) I have no doubt that such a process is currently well under way. Having spent a fair amount of time at more than a few of the big accounting firms, I somehow doubt that the ultimate accountability will be with the partners. There are so many options. If I were low on the totem pole at PwC and in some way involved in this year’s Oscars, I would be afraid – very afraid.

Meanwhile, it has come to light that one of the PwC partners – identified as a ‘managing partner’ – posted a celebrity photo on Twitter backstage at the Academy Awards, just minutes before he mistakenly gave an envelope to Beatty that set off the disastrous announcement of the wrong best-picture winner. Since accountants are all about accuracy, this happened “approximately three minutes” before Beatty and Faye Dunaway walked on stage to present the award for the best picture. According to people close to the production, the managing partner handed Beatty an envelope that, instead of containing the name of the best-picture winner, contained the name of the best actress, an award that had already been presented. This, of course, set off a chain of events. (Just in case you did not know, a managing partner in PwC is a member of a business partnership who is in charge of the day-to-day running of the business.)

Could a line have been crossed? Well, a few could have, but the one I refer to is where observers, who the partners effectively were, became active participants. This reminds me of those nature lifestyle programmes where a filmmaker sits at a watering hole, observing the activity of both the prey and the predator. When a predator attacks a prey, the filmmaker continues to film, not intervening in any way, as he or she is not part of the action, but merely an observer. Surely, the PwC partners were at the Oscars to work – to ensure that the job for which they were appointed was being done. That job, first and foremost, was to ensure that the Oscars were awarded correctly, without the partners becoming part of the celebration. By Tweeting about the celebration and the ensuing events, they became the news. If you are a glass- half-full person, even you have to admit that, in this instance, any publicity is definitely not good publicity. It is also ironic that an event that was billed to be a platform to bash newly elected US President Donald J Trump, particularly with respect to his views on ‘fake news’, would – admittedly, only for a few minutes – pro- vide fake news of its own. No matter where you were the day after the Oscars, this was front-page news; you simply could not escape it.