A small cheer that a couple of writers are suing the author Dan Brown, the fellow who penned the The Da Vinci Code, for plagiarism. He should be sued for making his readers engage in literary coprophagy; yet considering what he peddles, he is well-named.
The Da Vinci Code would be more properly called the Da Vinci Cod. An American archaeologist is giving a paper in Paris; simultaneously, and coincidentally, a curator is being murdered in his museum. The archaeologist returns to his hotel and goes to bed, where he is woken up by a French policeman who tells him to accompany him to the scene of the murder.
Now you could expect the writer to explain how the French police knew that the archaeologist was giving a talk in Paris, but he doesn't. The French police are good, to be sure, but are they so good that the moment someone is murdered, they instantly know that a foreigner useful to their enquiry is staying in the same city? However, our hero does wonder how the French police knew what hotel he was staying in. And then he remembers: all European hotels require that their guests hand in their passports to the hotel reception, and the information about who is staying where is fed to the central Interpol computer. He wonders: how long would it take for the French police to discover his hotel? About half-a-second.
This is all rubbish. You don't have to hand your passports over to hotels everywhere in Europe. Hotels don't pass all their information over to Interpol. There is no Interpol computer which knows who is staying where. Interpol is not an intelligence-gathering unit, but merely a dating agency between European police forces. Expecting it to know about every detail of hotel occupancy across Europe is like expecting a Lisdoonvarna match-maker to know the times of the trains from Vladivostok to Port Arthur.
We may expect Dan Brown's next novel to be set in Dublin, Ireland, where our hero is giving a paper on the Martian influence on The Book of Kelly in Trinity College, Belfast. That night he goes to sleep safe in the heart of downtown Dublin, but the noise of battle from uptown Andersonstown keeps him awake. British army helicopters clatter through the night sky. He gazes out of his window and sees the lights of Galway Bay, from where his mother's parents had been driven by the Black and Tans during the Famine.
Something inside him stirred. Was it a love for his ancestral homeland? Or was it that hot dog he'd had at Shannon airport, just outside the city? It was hard to say. He peered out on to the street. One o'clock in the morning and the cockles and mussels sellers were still plying their wares from their wickerwork baskets. Typically Irish maidens, their hair in gypsy-scarves over their heads, and long earrings dangling to their shoulders. "Alive, alive-oh," came the call from below. "Alive, alive oh." Across the cobbled yard, a lone fiddler was playing a mournful melody as a passing young IRA man, in a slouch hat, button-breeches and festooned with bandoliers, wearily put down his Thomson sub-machine gun. He broke into song: "The Minstrel boy to the war has gone, In the ranks of death you'll f. . ." A gentle but insistent rapping behind him. He turned, and in a single stride opened the door. "Top of the morning to you, sir," said a leprechaun-like figure, doffing his trilby. "My name is Inspector Aloysius O'Grady of CIE. Am I after speaking to the hero of the Da Vinci papers?" CIE! The Irish intelligence agency! God, these people were good. How had they discovered where he was? But then he remembered. He'd arranged to meet O'Grady here.
"Come in, and take a seat."
"Thank you sir, I'll take this one."
Moments later, our hero watched Inspector O'Grady totter down the hotel corridor beneath the weight of the only large armchair in the room. But before the little fellow had left, he had placed a letter on the bedside table, and winked meaningfully.
He tore the letter open. It was not written in English but in clusters of letters. It was code! He reached for his code-breakers' manual. Was it the Rosicrucian code? Enigma? Dogma? Smegma? None of those. He studied the cluster of letters carefully again. Of course! How stupid could he have been? It was the ancient Irish code, Ogham.
Within seconds, he had discovered the real meaning of the letter, and his heart sank at its earth-shattering magnitude. St Patrick was not the captured slave of legend, but in fact Pontius Pilate. He had been followed by Judas Iscariot, calling himself St Kevin. Of course! They merely had to introduce themselves as Saint Kevin and Saint Patrick in medieval Ireland and all doors would open for them! Thus they had founded their so-called monastery at New Grange, which had become the centre of a highly secret order to spread evil around the world. This explained everything in world history! Stalin had been a member of their order! So had Harold Shipman! So had Pol Pot! So had. . .
Another knock on the door! He opened it. "Sorry," muttered O'Grady, still wearing the armchair. "Wrong letter." The little fellow took back the final demand to him from the Revenue Commissioners for details of his off-shore account, put down the invitation from the President, and departed.
Áras an Uachtaráin? What kind of code was this? Our hero reached for his codebook.