It's the one conspiracy theory that underpins all others, linked to communism, Satanism, Zionism, the freemasons, the Ku Klux Klan, pyramids, UFOs and who knows what else? Dan Brown accused them of plotting against the Vatican a full century before they officially existed David Icke accused them of being reptilian aliens. A more academic, but only a little less entertaining alternative to Jon Ronson's Them, Porter's book traces the genealogy of the illuminati myth and discovers the mere handful of writers responsible for bringing it into the 20th century. Wittily, Long imagines the focus-grouped market research for his tale, indicating that there's real support for its tone and the milieu among men aged 18 to 35, but that women 25 to 30 "want more of an emotional story". There's across the board agreement, though, that there's too much "blah blah" and the main character is just too depressing He has to be cut.
Who are the Illuminati? by Lindsay Porter (COLLINS & BROWN £8.99) The short answer: the Order of the Illiminati was a progressive secret society founded in 1776 by Bavarian university law professor Adam Weishaupt, with the aim of spreading the principles of the emergent Enlightenment in what was still a deeply conservative part of Europe. Or the Hollywood definition of "friend", "so elastic that it includes the definition of 'enemy'." It's tacitly accepted that in such an incestuous, status-obsessed and back-biting town, sooner or later everyone screws everyone else over. "Uncertainty is just bad news taking its time." Deciphering the industry doublespeak for us is a large part of Rob Long's project. Take the word "talent", which doesn't actually denote talent, it just means actor: "a noun, interchangeable with the word mammal". Their affair lasted for four years and they had a son, christened Julian Mark Andrews (although he is known as Mark rather than Julian), when Pat was just 17. "It all went gloriously until October 1961 when I gave birth.
I hadn't realised I was pregnant until seven months in - I thought it was a tumour."Brian came to see me in the nursing home. He sold a number of his treasured records to buy me flowers and a skirt and jumper, which was rather sweet."But Jones did not want to stay in Cheltenham - he wanted to make music. Mother and son followed Jones to London, where they stayed in a series of one-room bedsits while he tried to make it in the music business. From time to time they stayed in the same flat in Edith Grove as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.However, the relationship did not last.