Man overboard for the love of money...
You may have read about a woman who survived 10 hours in the sea after falling from a cruise ship while on holiday.
To keep her spirits up, Kay Longstaff sang to herself while treading water wondering if she was ever going to be rescued as the liner disappeared over the horizon.
As ever in these dramatic cases, the circumstances surrounding Kay’s ‘fall’ from the vessel are a cause of much debate and speculation.
My first thought however, was: ‘I wonder how long before we Kay Longstaff ’s Lost At Sea Anthems’ is released. In the run up to Christmas I suspect.
I’ll wager the theme tune to Jaws doesn’t figure, but Aretha Franklin’s Rescue Me will definitely be up there. So too, no doubt, will be Eric Carmen’s All By Myself.
They could lighten the mood with a version of The Beatles’ Octopus’s Garden.
I dunno, I’m not an expert in this area of marketing, but I think (unlike most shark attack victims) it has legs.
And, mark my words, someone will make money out of this trauma.
Such is the world we live in today that any high profile fall from grace or much publicised drama is fair game to the marketeers and publicists.
Take Kerry Katona for example (I wish someone would - copyright Les Dawson). Or any one of many celebs to have had battles with booze and ballooned in weight.
No sooner are they out of rehab, than they are promoting fitness videos.
The cover will invariably feature the celeb looking like a beached whale alongside how they look after the exercise regime.
The ‘before’ picture could be mistaken for Boris Johnson in a mankini, while the ‘after’ picture is clearly the work of two Photoshop experts working round the clock for two days.
And people fall for this stuff.
Eighteen months later and the celebrity is pictured falling out of some Soho wine bar looking as bloated as ever.
Presumably they’ve feasted their faces on the proceeds of their exercise DVD sales.
I’m not saying that unscrupulous agencies are at work looking to cash in on other people’s misery but .. oh wait ... that’s exactly what I’m saying.
If you’re looking for an exercise video that works, surely someone who has remained pretty much the same healthy weight for more than 30 years would be a better shout.
Can I therefore direct you to Richard Ord’s Touch Type Your Way to an Average Bod DVD?
Why not? I’ve hung around the 11 stone mark for three decades eating regular meals, supping pints and venting my spleen in this column. I guess all I need is that dramatic hook!
If someone could throw me off the back of a ferry, I could make a million - and it could be me falling out of Chinawhites on the proceeds.
Who’s up for man overboard duties? You’ll get 10 per cent. Form an orderly queue...