Swompdonkey

Holy Blood, Holy Bunk

I'm quite gratified to hear that the "soon-to-be a major motion picture" The Da Vinci Code-- that formulaic, problematic, and highly over-rated novel, is getting its comeuppance. Anyone who has bothered to probe the roots of this pseudo-historical work of fiction will already be aware that it borrows heavily from Baigent and Leigh's Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Indeed, Dan Brown makes little secret of this, going so far as making the name of one of the characters in his novel an anagram of Baigent and Leigh's names.

It turns out the feckless Brown may have borrowed a bit too heavily from the 1982 conspirazoid opus authored by two so-called "religious scholars" Michael Baigent (BA Canterbury U.) and Dr Leigh (PhD Stony Brook New York State University -Stony Brook U? Is that an online university?) who are now suing Brown's ass for plagiarism. A legion of real religious scholars have already dismiss the oddball theories found in HBHB as a load of nonsense time and time again, but a high-profile court case will likely drag Baigent and Leigh's pungent ideas out into the light of day yet again, exposing the Priory of Sion Hoax and other ludicrous theories to a much wider audience than ever before.

Let the bloodletting begin, I say!