Fifteen Things You Didn't Know About The Da Vinci Code

There was some noise about the Sri Lankan president banning The Da Vinci Code movie (rather weird, considering the book has been available in the country soon after it was released in 2003/04) without the Censor Board's knowledge . Now it seems like none of the distributors in SL were planning on screening the movie in the first place, due to it's high cost. So what's all the fuss about? There are so many pirate copies of the movie circulating in the city today - those who want to watch it will watch it anyway. Apart from appeasing a particular religious sect, what exactly does the ban accomplish?

The following article on the Telegraph site makes more sense!

Way of the world
By Craig Brown

Fifteen Things You Didn't Know About The Da Vinci Code

1) The book was originally entitled The Da Vinci Cod. It revolved around a cod with an enigmatic smile that was depicted sitting on the table at the Second Last Supper, an event ruthlessly suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church for 2,000 years.

2) The film of The Da Vinci Code has been roundly condemned by many Christian organisations. This puts it in a long line of films condemned by various pressure groups. They include Chariots of Fire (1981) condemned by the Central Office of Fire Prevention, The Sound of Music (1965), condemned by the Royal Society for the Tone-Deaf, Titanic (1997) condemned by the Iceberg Defence Committee, and Gone with the Wind (1939), condemned by the WSGBSL (Wind and Strong Gusty Breeze Supporters League). This survey strongly suggests that condemnation serves only to increase popularity.

3) Halfway through his research, author Dan Brown changed the book's title to The Da Vinci Cold. Apparently, he had unearthed ancient documents in a secret vault that proved beyond doubt that Mary Magdalene had a bad cold when she introduced herself to the Gospel writers: her real name, it transpires, was not Mary Magdalene but Mary Madeleine. Eminent cryptoloists have since discovered that the name "Dan Brown" is an anagram of "And now br…" - which strongly suggests that he, too, was experiencing a cold while typing his manuscript.

4) It is conservatively estimated that The Da Vinci Code novel has already been read by well over 10 million Britons. This amounts to more than six billion pages of The Da Vinci Code. Smear tests taken from these pages further suggests that they have absorbed more than 3,000 tons of sunblock, 2,760 tons of pure chlorine, and more than 800 million gallons of pina colada.

5) In his 10th draft, the author changed the book's name yet again, this time to The Da Vina Code. The plot now revolved around a female television presenter - Da Vina - who, back in the mists of time, was given her own chat-show by the ruthless secret society, code-named "The BBC", founded hundreds of years ago by the sinister control-freak Lord Wreath. No one ever set eyes on Da Vina's chat-show - or, if they did, they never lived to tell the tale.

6) Forty-three per cent of readers of The Da Vinci Code now sincerely believe that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were secretly married, and subsequently gave birth to a very long and very, very secret line of descendants. This compares well with the 29 per cent of James Bond readers who are convinced that a secret Caribbean island fortress is home to the ruthless, power-crazed Dr No, who employs a series of fiendish tortures in order to safeguard his privacy.

However, this proportion remains marginally lower than the 46 per cent of Batman viewers who believe that multi-millionaire Bruce Wayne rids Gotham City of master-criminals by donning a top-secret bat costume and switching to his alter ego, aided by his excitable young companion, Robin, the Boy Wonder.

7) Watch and listen attentively, and you will be able to spot a number of small but key errors in The Da Vinci Code.

8) For instance, the secret underground passage linking Simpson's-in-the-Strand to Madame Tussaud's and guarded by bull mastiffs is lined with red, not green, velvet.

9) And if you press the third bedknob on the left in the master bedroom of Queen Mary's Dolls House in Windsor Castle, the floor of the room in which it is housed will slide open to reveal a spiral staircase down to a nuclear bunker populated entirely by murderous albino monks, BUT the chief monk is called Simon, not Silas.

10) And some experts also argue that the Taj Mahal is in fact not situated at the far end of the Mall, the Mall is not in Paris, and Paris is not the capital of Italy. But Da Vinci Code aficionados remain convinced that this is all part of a much larger cover-up spanning the entire world, civilised and uncivilised, masterminded by the Duke of Edinburgh, in league with the Vatican and Derry and Toms.

11) In the film, French actress Audrey Tautou plays an investigator called Sophie Neveu, who turns out to be the last living descendant of Jesus Christ. Her character is in fact modelled on our own Metropolitan Police Commissioner Ian Blair, who is himself, some argue, a direct descendant of Sgt George Dixon. Dixon presided over Dock Green for many years; though he made numerous arrests, he failed to uncover the subterranean hideout of 2,000 Meringovian hit-men, situated immediately beneath the serving hatch of the village pub.

12) The Mona Lisa plays an important part in The Da Vinci Code. It turns out that if you look really hard at her left hand, you can see that she is secretly holding a Colt 45 semi-automatic shotgun, hidden beneath the folds of her cloak.

13) Next month, a major court case against author Dan Brown opens in London. He is accused of plagiarising original conspiracy stories. The joint prosecution has been brought by Mr Lee Harvey Oswald and Nessie.

14) The mystic, sage and prophet Nostradamus - himself a direct descendant of Conan the Barbarian - predicted the phenomenon of The Da Vinci Code more than 500 years ago, in this spookily prescient quatrain: Millions hungry for nonsense will swim across rivers/ And venture through fire to read the code of Davi Nci/ But later, in those days that see the release of the movie/ The same millions will find cause to sense/ A turkey.

15) The content of Dan Brown's next book is not known, but strong rumours abound that it will be an exposé of popular heroine Snow White, best known for her charitable work among dwarfs. Explosive new evidence unearthed by the author suggests that Snow White had a long-standing affair with leading dwarf Grumpy, that the affair culminated in the birth of a secret love-child, and that the love-child grew up to become the Deputy Prime Minister of Great Britain.