Da judge who ruled on the Da Vinci Code trial (which one?) has included a code of his own in the written judgement! When even the judge is making fun of you, you’re pretty much a fucking cartoon, Daniel-san. Time for ritual suicide. I’d make a joke about this being your next book, but we both know you’re set for life.

For the past three weeks, lawyers on both sides of the Atlantic have been puzzling over a series of strange italicisations in Mr Justice Smith’s 71-page judgment, which was handed down on April 7. The odd letters appeared to crop up randomly throughout the text and most people assumed they were typographical errors. But on closer examination, a pattern has emerged.

The first clue – the word claimants with the s in italics – is found in paragraph one of the document. In the next paragraph, the m in claimant is italicised. Read together, the italicised letters in the first seven paragraphs spell out the self-referential legend “Smithy code”.

Damn, that judge must have had some good fun.