LONDON -- Here's a slightly crazy story for these hot summer days. The book the whole world is reading on its holidays -- or at any rate the whole English-speaking world -- is called "The Da Vinci Code," by the American writer Dan Brown.
The book has been roundly condemned by numerous high-minded critics and reviewers as nonsense, as well as offensive in religious terms. Nevertheless, some 6 million people are said to have bought it, thus proving the critics, as so often, hopelessly out of touch.
What is this best seller about? An age-old theme, the search for the Holy Grail, although no one ever seemed too sure what the Holy Grail really was.