Move over Dan Brown. Photograph:
Alastair Grant/AP

After this morning's revelations that Mr Justice Peter Smith, the judge in the Da Vinci Code/Holy Blood Holy Grail copyright case, was so inspired by the tales of thrilling codebreaking that he was moved to suspend judicial detachment/sense/dignity [delete as appropriate] and inserted a code of his own into his judgment on the case, one is left to wonder whether, when it comes to stories on The Da Vinci Code, there are any new depths of ludicrousness left to plumb.

Still, the fact of the matter is that, for better or worse, the challenge has been set, and codebreakers the world over are working to meet it. The code takes the form of a number of italicised letters appearing in odd words over the first 14 pages of the judgment. The first 10 letters spell out the self-referential words "Smithy code"; the following 25 are jumbled. These are the letters that form the code that must be broken.

So, who's up for the challenge? You can read the judgment in full here [pdf] - and do let us know if you crack it: we'll be terribly impressed and probably send you a book or something. Not The Da Vinci Code, though.