DA VINCI WALK

Kevin Molloy took us on an interesting walk based on the Da Vinci code which he has developed while and since qualifying. We went into the Temple Church which I had been meaning to visit for ages - but it took an APTG event to get me there. The church was a bit of red herring in the story because 'a knight buried by a pope' was not a Templar knight but Isaac Newton at Westminster Abbey (which disapproves of the book) - he was a knight (Sir Isaac) whose funeral was arranged by Alexander Pope. Brown got most of his information from his wife who does his research and his geography of London was a bit of suspect. He had probably never been here but had to come to the Royal Courts of Justice to protect himself from accusations of plagiarism by fellow Random House authors.
Kevin covered the main bases but did not really deal with the phoney Brotherhood of Sion which is supposed to have kept the secret of Jesus and Mary Magdalene's marriage and child for centuries. I don't believe in long kept secrets - people are too keen to spill the beans - and Tony Robinson proved that the whole thing had been a surrealist practical joke which had been taken seriously by the auhtors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, who ideas Dan Brown borrowed/ripped off to make a book which has sold over forty million copies. Guides can only dream of that sort of reach...