Conspiracy

Ian Shircore's lifelong interest in cover-ups and conspiracies was stirred by the stream of revelations in recent years in declassified documents and answers to Freedom of Information Act requests. And he was handed an amazing bonus, midway through writing his latest book, Conspiracy! 49 Reasons to Doubt, 50 Reasons to Believe, when WikiLeaks published its treasure trove of secret cables. He is amazed at the way WikiLeaks stories - like the evidence that there was probably a fifth 9/11 hijack team on a BA jet bound for London - seemed to be lost in the wash as the press struggled with the deluge of new information. Bizarrely, Ian was once accused by Sunday Times journalists of being Belle de Jour, author of the sex blog Diary of a London Call Girl. His books include Manage Yourself, Manage Your Life, an NLP survival guide that has been reprinted 17 times, and Douglas Adams: The First and Lost Tapes, a little ebook based on an early, pre-fame interview with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author. Ian is a trustee of an energetic musical charity, the MAE Foundation, that provides instruments and music teaching for the "kids between countries" - the young refugees from Burma living behind the wire in camps along the Thai border.