The Da Vinci Code Loonies are on the March
 

The mayor of a French village besieged by obsessive fans of The Da Vinci Code has been forced to dig up the body of a mysterious priest and encase it in a concrete mausoleum to deter rapacious treasure hunters. The full story is in the Telegraph at: http://travel.telegraph.co.uk/news/m...4/wvinci14.xml

I guess the nut cases have given up on the Blair Witch.

It would appear that some people haven't grasped the fact that the book is for entertainment only?

In fairness to the loonies, the novel merely refers to what an earlier book (? Holy Blood, Holy Grail) claimed to be verifiable hard facts.

The whole nonsense about this village and its priest (though not the wonderful nonsense in the Telegraph article about the priest's "descendants", which the idiot Torygraph writer has invented. A Catholic priest with descendants really would be a a scandal) - all that stuff, and all the claims about a Church plot to suppress evidence comes from the earlier, allegedly factual, book.

Flanner, I am absolutely amazed that you even know where France is, much less that it even exists!

I just read that Tom Hanks will star in the movie. The director is Brian Grazer.

I found it odd a few years back when people started asking me whether I was going to visit Rosslyn Chapel on my next trip to Scotland. Odd because in the roughly 30 years since I'd visited nobody had expressed the slightest interest in the place. And then last year everybody was talking about it. Odder still. But oddest of all was that they were spouting what sounded like a bunch of loony nonsense and conspiracy theories with only a tenuous relationship, if that, to

(No, it wasn't the Knights Templar who caused that premature posting; it was me hitting the wrong key.)

As I was saying...

nonsense and conspiracy theories with only a tenuous relationship, if that, to history. Finally I discovered that I'd been out of the loony pseudo-history loop.

It never ceases to amaze me that people who won't spend time reading documented history, art history, etc., will read novels as if they're the gospel truth.

Barbara - I hear the director will be Ron Howard...

A priest with descendents would hardly be a scandal; in earlier days priests were allowed to marry.

Underhill: This is one of those occasions when you do well to reveal your ignorance. This whole nonsense refers to the tomb of the Abbe Sauniere, priest at Rennes le Chateau in the 1880s - when priests most certainly weren't allowed to marry.

Coingratulations on being one of the few people left standing who's avoided both the DeVinci Code and the earlier piece of alternative history.

KT (and what's that an acronym of?): Actually, it's not the pseudo-history: people used to accuse Schliemann of just that, and we'd never have uncovered Troy without him. It's the ignorance of our culture.
The Torygraph article reprints (and mistranslates) yet again the claptrap about "Terrbilis est locus iste" on the Rennes church - which anyone of a certain age who was ever an altar boy knows is just the passage from Genesis 28 that's the Introit to the Mass for the dedication of a church. Obscure? Once upon a time every Torygraph writer would have been familar enough with both Latin and Genesis to avoid the mistake.

TopMan: What are you batting on about? Of course I know all about France: where do you think I go to top up the Flanner winecellar? You didn't imagine we'd pay British prices?

Austin, that's right. i think Brian Grazer must be producing. They're both involved.

It's good that we've switched from the election to religion! Let me know when we get to gun control.

Allow me to delicately point out one need not be married to have descendants. And as for The Da Vinci Code, I am all for anything that gets people reading again and away from the tube.

Ah, but you didn't specify the date, did you?

And I did read the Da Vinci Code, laughing my way through all the misinformation and the truly dreadful dialogue.

Where do I sign up for the Da Vinci Code DEBUNKED Tour?
This whole think reminds me of the UFO craze back in the Super 70s.

Thank god - I thought I was the only one who couldn;t get through that book. It was simply awful: poor writing, minimal character development, tons of inaccuracies (and I only got through about 40/50 pages despite trying a couple of times) and simply ridiculous plot.

Perhaps some of the people who love this swill so much should try reading an actual book - with facts - or history - or something real!!

I tried to read that bloody awful book, but after two pages decided that life was too short to waste on dreadful prose and returned it to the lender (I wasn't stupid enough to lay out my own money, that's for sure).

The gullible we shall have with us always. The Bermuda Triangle, "Chariots of the Gods", crystals, channelers, past lives - no end to it. We crave explanations but can't be bothered with science and real history; they're not sexy enough, and demand too great an attention span.

Actually I think Tom Hanks is miscast. He'a a super actor but George Clooney would have been much better. Jeff Bridges was my 2nd choice.