The last sucker

Just in case you hadn't already heard - which is unlikely - the countdown clock on the front of Dan Brown's website will help you out. It reveals that there's, at the time of posting this sentence, 1 day, 14 hours, 29 minutes and 16 seconds left until the film version of the record-breaking Da Vinci Code book has its world release.

I say unlikely since during recent weeks the publicity accompanying the film's release has been racing faster than the plot. For a start, you can win official merchandise, including baseball caps and "clamshell style titanium clocks" on the film's website. If that doesn't grab you, then perhaps the marketing people dressed as monks who have been handing out Mona Lisa puzzles on the streets of London will.

Television makers exploring the evidence for the book's main premise - that Jesus had a son whose descendants continue to this day - were among the first to realise the cash cow potential of the book.

Maybe you saw Tony Robinson fronting the Real Da Vinci Code. If not, this week More 4 is broadcasting Decoding Da Vinci which looks at where Brown's ideas came from.

There was also BBC4's The Da Vinci Code - The Greatest Story Ever Sold, which analysed the formula that made the book so successful. "We learn exactly how Brown used myths to create an intoxicating potion with a whiff of plausibility", the programme's preview in the Radio Times promised.

And it is not just broadcasters. In the month's leading up to 2005 general election, the Guardian's online political team thought the Da Vinci theme could liven up matters a little.