function loadBanner(bannerText)
{
  // No expiry date so this cookie will expire when the browser closes and we
  // don't need to worry about erasing a pre-existing duplicate.
  document.cookie = "avsBanner = " + bannerText;
}

function showBanner()
{
    var thisCookie = "";
    var bannerText = "";
    
    if(document.cookie="")
    { 
      // The cookie is set when the home page loads but the visitor may have jumped straight to this page
      bannerText = "Latest news will appear in browsers with scripts enabled.";
    }
    else
    {
      thisCookie = document.cookie.split("; ");
      for (i=0; i<thisCookie.length; i++)
      {
        if(thisCookie[i].split("=")[0] == "avsBanner")
        {
          // We've found the cookie holding the AVS banner so we can bail out now
          bannerText = thisCookie[i].split("=")[1];
          break;
        }
      }
    }  
  // Simple but effective. Also old-fashioned and utterly non-compliant.  
  document.write("<marquee scrollamount='2' scrolldelay='1'>");
  document.write(bannerText); 
  document.write("</marquee>");
}