Day 1920: The Da Vinci Cod

…or “something fishy happened on the way to the publishers”

Thursday:



The High Court has discovered that Mr Dan Brown’s book “THE DA VINCI COD” was NOT a copy of an earlier book “THE HOLY COD and THE HOLY GRIPE, by DA VINCI”.

Neither of my Daddies has read the DA VINCI COD, on the advice of the sainted MR STEVEN FRY who said it was “bottom water of the first order”! However, Daddy Alex has read “THE HOLY COD and THE HOLY GRIPE” and says that it was “compelling but barking mad”!

Here is the PLOT: the man who started Christianity who was called JESUS (and NOT FATHER CHRISTMAS) was married to MARY CHRISTMAS (ho ho ho – that is an OLD joke but this IS a history book!) and there has been a plot among lots and lots of famous people like LEONARDO DA VINCI for thousands of years to keep this a secret.

In order to keep this secret hidden, the church has arranged for the DA VINCI COD to be made into a HOLLYWOOD BLOCKBUSTER movie staring TOM HANKS.

This is probably a CUNNING DOUBLE BLUFF. Or they think that if TOM HANKS is in it no one will go and watch it.

Anyway, the people who wrote “THE HOLY COD and THE HOLY GRIPE, by DA VINCI” are called Mr Leigh and Mr Baigent and they wanted their share of the POTS OF DOSH that have been heaped on Mr Dan Brown so they took him to court to say that he stole their story.

Now on the one fluffy foot, they were claiming that their book was NOT a MADE UP STORY but TRUE, in which case they shouldn’t really be saying that Mr Dan Brown stole their idea. Unless they want the REAL WORLD to sue them for knicking the idea from IT!

But on the other fluffy foot, Mr Dan Brown said that he had NEVER heard of Mr Baignet and Mr Leigh before they sued him – which would be a BIT more credible if he hadn’t made up a CHARACTER in his BOOK called LEIGH TEABING which is an ANAGRAM of “I DID IT: IT RIPPED OFF ALL THE IDEAS FROM “THE HOLY COD AND THE HOLY GRIPE”!”

Well NEARLY!

Funnily enough, after the court had said he didn’t copy ideas, Mr Dan Brown said it was good that this meant that people could write books using other people’s ideas.

Still this story has a happy ending.

The books sales of “THE HOLY COD and THE HOLY GRIPE” have gone from 7,000 a year to 7,000 a WEEK, so Mr Leigh and Mr Teabing will no doubt be able to pay their lawyers the ONE MILLION POUNDS in legal fees!