Dr Burridge, what is your overriding impression of The Da Vinci Code?
Firstly, it is a cracking good read, a real page-turner. One of its appeals is that we all like secrets. We suspect that ‘they’ are keeping something from us – that there’s a conspiracy of silence. The book also taps into a spiritual thirst. From the musical Godspell of the 1970s to last year’s The Passion of the Christ, people are fascinated by Jesus. Who is he? The book is seductive in that it promises hidden secrets to those in the know. And we all want to be in the know. The central plot of the book is that the two main characters go hunting for the Holy Grail, having decoded secret messages found in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper. They make inquiries at King’s – ‘renowned for its electronic theological database’. Are you happy with the college’s inclusion? Dan Brown makes a number of statements about King’s College which contradict his opening statement about accuracy. He has his two main characters catching a Tube at Temple station to travel to King’s, whereas Templ
