The BBC has just made a documentary on the 7th Earl.You can see it here until November 1, 2009.

The BEEB also some new evidence. They have found a Harley Street plastic surgeon; the man who, in all probability, gave Lucan a new face before he fled to exile.

I have a small part in the documentary. Somehow, over the last four months, it would seem that I have become one of Britain’s leading experts on Lucan and the man behind the myth …

Click here if you’d like to have a peek … 

Hedge magazine costs a very impressive £25 an issue. So please don’t trouble yourself to go out and buy a copy. Honestly …

Alastair Mabbott, I owe you one very large drink …

"A modest book from a small publisher, this fictionalised memoir of the missing Seventh Earl of Lucan punches well above its weight.

  "With the runaway peer’s associates John Aspinall and James Goldsmith long dead, journalist William Coles is free to spin whatever tale he likes about Lucan’s disappearance without provoking a flurry of libel writs.
  "He has set about his task with a mischievous glee which, combined with a pace that never slackens, is highly appealing.

"In this account of the events following the murder of Lucan’s children’s nanny, Aspinall is the loyal friend who finds the peer’s newly acquired fugitive status exciting and hides him in a luxury bunker beneath his mansion.
   "Goldsmith, meanwhile, is depicted as a loathsome, Blofeld-like cad, dedicated to making Lucan’s life a misery as revenge for a schoolboy slight.
    "It’s all completely fictitious, of course, but Coles is so engrossing and persuasive that you do sometimes have to keep reminding yourself that these aren’t the real Lucan’s words."
Alastair Mabbott

Slightly perturbed to see that, as a plinther (technical term for all the great and the good appearing on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square), I am being put in the same category as all the other nutters, odd-balls, eccentrics and barmy old coves who are appearing on the plinth.

With Sky TV, I did make the very slight point that although the plinth experience is going to be "wunnerful", I am in fact doing it to sell more books …Click here for the Sunday Telegraph link …

Meanwhile, the Lord Lucan web site is looking TERRIFIC! You wouldn’t believe it, but we’ve even unearthed Lord Lucan’s favourite recipe! It’s all there!

The Express is my paper of choice. We have a fantastic mutual-admiration society.

Here’s a little piece I’ve done for them on Top Gear. 

Next item: What my id does when he’s writing …

PS. The Fourth Plinth, Trafalgar Square, 4pm to 5pm on July 9. Lord Lucan will be making his first appearance in 35 years - and as for me, his humble editor, I’ll be buying ANYONE a drink afterwards. Have yet to decide precisely where. But should be from about 6-ish, after my plinth debrief.

Although only in its infancy, we have high hopes that Lord Lucan.org will soon be topping Google …

The definitive site, perhaps, for all things Lucan. x

Just click here for the Amazon link

   The Well-Tempered Clavier is also now out in the States - under the catchier title "Prelude". Not to mention a catchier cover. I’ve just been on America’s NPR radio to talk about Prelude’s theme: Illicit love.

Click here for a listen

  All reviews and recommendations - not to mention sales - greatly appreciated!

Anyway … after a mere six-month wait, I can finally reveal the nature of the great, the magnificent, the eagerly-awaited … Project X.

It is a little book about Lord Lucan.

Lord Lucan? Know him? Guess that will depend on your nationality and your age. But if you are a Brit over the age of 40, then you will know all about Lucky Lord Lucan.

He was our most dashing peer, a hell of a swell. And then, at the age of 39, he attempted to murder his wife, killed his nanny, and disappeared off the face of the earth.

Lucan - actually, the Seventh Earl of Lucan - has not been seen or heard of in 35 years.

Over the decades, there have been a lot of books about what might have happened to Lucan.

But my little book is the big one. The one they’ve all been after.

It’s not just about Lucky Lord Lucan.

It’s not just telling you what HAPPENED to him when he was whisked off by the Clermont Set.

It’s actually BY him!

I have merely acted as Lord Lucan’s humble editor.

The book - Lord Lucan: My Story - is out at the end of May.

And if you should care to know a little more about it, then just click here …

Not only that but they’ve given it a much better title; and, ahem, a much better cover.

Here it is:

All of it most excellent news. So civilised to deal with Soho’s editor too. Somebody who was keen, interested, enthusiastic …

In fact, now that I think of it, different in almost every single way from another editor that I happen to know in London.

Speaking of which … I spoke to Idle Tom the Publisher just this week. And yes, there is quite considerable news to report:

"Hello Tom," I said. "What are you doing?"

"Hello Old Cock," he chirrups. "Just out for a coffee. Have you seen this Barack Obama stuff? Amazing!"

"Yes it is, isn’t it?"

"Anyway, not much going on here. Told you about the break-in didn’t I? Yeah, I did. Umm, well, and that’s about it I guess?"

"So what’s happened with Project X?"

"Project X?"

"The stinking manuscript that I gave you over two months ago! The one that you have paid the biggest advance in Legend history."

"Oh yes. That. Well what about it?"

"Well have you read the thing?"

"Hmmm. Good question. Have I read it? Umm, now that I come to think of it, I got about halfway through and something came up."

"Jesus! But this is exactly the position we were in a month ago -"

"No - the last time I think I’d had my computer stolen -"

"Yes! I know that! But we’re in the same position in that you still haven’t read the manuscript -"

"Heyyy! Easy, tiger! I thought you asked me if I’d be able to read it by Christmas, and I said I’d give it my best shot."

"I know - but when I asked you if you were going to read it by Christmas I was joking. It hadn’t occurred to me that you’d take four months to read a 75,000-word manuscript."

"Ahh! You were joking! I thought you were being serious." I can hear him slurping noisily on his Latte. "Anyway - what I’ve read so far, I really like."

"Lovely."

"Might need a few tweaks, but basically it’s looking good - "

"I’m so pleased to hear you say that."

Anyway! What do I care? I have much, much news to report about Project X - the book project, that is, that was finished about two months ago, and for which Idle Tom the Publisher has paid the biggest advance in Legend Press history, and which is supposedly "due out" next spring.

Now, a month or so back, I think I might have joked that Idle Tom wouldn’t get round to reading the manuscript till Christmas. I guess I thought he might take three weeks. Tops.

As it turns out, I’d be ASTONISHED if he got round to reading the thing  by 2009.

"You know how it is, Old Cock," he says to me. (Why, by the way, does he insist on calling me "Old Cock"? Does he call all of his writers "Old Cock"? Is it me?).  "We’ve had the place burgled. Lost all the computers."

"Yeah," I said, trying to sound mildly solicitous. "You told me that a month ago."

"Did I?"

"Yes, you did. So how can I be of help, Tom?"

"Ummm. You could send the manuscript over again, that’d be great."

"The manuscript?! I sent it to you two months ago - and I sent it again when you were burgled!"

"Yeahhhh," he says. "Well we ain’t got it, and, you know …"

"OK. This is becoming a bit of a theme for you, Tom. So you want the manuscript again for Project X?"

"Yeahhh. That would be cool."

"And when do you think you’ll get round to reading this thing? Just so long as it’s not been "burgled" again?"

"Ooooh. Soon. Definitely. Some time soon. Definitely sooner rather than later, old cock -"

"Do you have to call me "Old cock"?"

"Don’t you like it?"