The Snell Affair

> http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/daily-news/article.php?id=5495 "...erroneous death stats provided by the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust, a political lobbying organisation funded by the Freemasons." A most serious subject, I know, but it *still* sounds to me like a follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code"...

...As they crossed the Member's Lobby, the marvellous architecture of the Victorian masterpiece - designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin - cast deep shadows over Eric's hawklike profile. Even though he trusted Angela implicitly, he could hardly believe what he was hearing. "...but Angela, you don't mean that cyclists are dying of head injuries in their *thousands* every day, and a shadowy but essentially benign organisation is trying desperately to stem the appalling tide of misery which is caused by the failure of cyclists to take the most basic precautions, as depicted in the secretly-removed addendum to Leonardo's alleged drawing of a bicycle, not to mention the cut scenes from Jacques Tati's "Jour de Fete?" Angela tossed her girlish head in affectionate irritation, and said: "Well, that's the exposition over with. You're right, Eric, and they're relying on *us* to try to defuse the timebomb of, er, cyclists being knocked off, before the entire cycling population of the country dies by being run over by a truck, which a simple badly-fitted helmet could have prevented. We need to find the Sacred Bell Helmet Of Belleville before the fiendish BHRF send their crack team of rebuttal gents after us - they've already got poor Coulthard!" Eric stopped in his tracks. Something was wrong. Seriously wrong. "Coulthard? But he always wore a helmet - how could he have been in danger?" "He forgot it. He was photographed twenty-seven times without one." Twenty-seven times? With a flash of inspiration Eric realised that that was the *exact* number of gears on Coulthard's bicycle.  What did that mean, he wondered?  Coincidence?  Or could it be that the whole affair was more complex than he had thought?  No, he decided, that was obviously impossible - he and Angela were far too intelligent to have made such a blunder. He would find out only too soon that he couldn't have been more wrong. [Excerpted without permission from Dan Brown's "The Snell Affair" - coming soon to an Early Day Motion near you!]