Jon Robson (2012) Lost at Sea

Jon Robson has the kind of job I covet, he meets Noel Edmonds -- and other strange folk doing strange things. Deal or No Deal Jon - you come and live in Dalmuir for a week and I’ll try Seattle?

Who can forget the pretext of Bill and the Ufo was that angels disguised themselves as aliens and went to live in Faifley because nobody would bother them when living there? Well, me for starters and I wrote it.

Aliens are only aliens when you have to turn the telly up because you can’t hear yourself think. The contestants in Deal or No Deal are penned together in a hotel and left to simmer until the programme is recorded.

Disney Wonder is Deal or No Deal on a cruise ship. There are 2455 passengers and 1000 Oceaneers or employees that live in an airless cupboard-sized space below the waterline. Cameras follow everyone’s every movement. There’s work and there’s water. When twenty-four year old Rebecca Coriam didn’t report for work at 9am, she was tannoyed. The ship was searched and a Mexican coastguard searched the water. ‘Lost at Sea’ is not that uncommon. Forty-three people disappeared from Carnival cruises between 2000 and 2011. 171 disappeared, in total, over all cruise lines. Investigations are ongoing.   Some crew members are more easily lost than others. The common denominator is there is no mystery. Poor people are expandable. There’s no cover up necessary. Let’s move on. People are trying to enjoy themselves. Naturally glum dead people are bad for business and make bad Mouseketeers. Live with it.  

‘Is She for Real?’ Jon asks of psychic Sylvia Browne. Sylvia is said to divide public opinion because she tells such whoppers. Interviewed on CBS television on the Montel Williams Show, in 1999,  she told the grandparent of missing Opal Jo Jennings snatched from her yard  in  Texas that the girl was alive, but the girl was taken on a boat or plane and taken into slavery in Kuouro in Japan.

Opal’s body was found buried in Fort Worth, Texas. She had been taken and murdered by a  local man the same night she went missing.

Sylvia Browne is a best-selling author and she’s on a meet-and-greet with her fans on the cruise ship Westerdam. She doesn’t like Jon because he doesn’t go overboard about her psychic talents. I’m sure we’ll hear about that nice Jon Robson again. I predict he’ll make a splash.

http://unbound.co.uk/books/lily-poole