Interesting Facts

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the use of "la la" as an adjective (as in La La Land), dates back to 1800s, and means so so. (Los Angeles (LA) was given the nickname La La Land around 1979, to express how out of touch with reality the whole Hollywood scene was (is).  I think the latest Oscar winner is a great example of this, but that's just me. "La la" is also the sound you can make when you don't know the words in a song, and the Online Etymology Dictionary says la-la is imitative of babbling speech in many languages: Greek lalage "babble, prattle," Sanskrit lalalla as an imitation of stammering, Latin lallare "to sing to sleep, lull," German lallen "to stammer," Lithuanian laluoti "to stammer.") Have you ever sung along to a song with la la la la? This is the ultimate la la la la la song:-

After nearly 25 years, the Carry On film franchise is about to return to British cinema. (The last film to be made was Carry On Columbus in 1992, it was the 31st film made.   Carry on Films are part of British Culture, and they turned actors like Sid James, Kenneth Williams, and Dame Barbara Windsor into household characters. In 2007 the line "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!" was voted the funniest film one-liner: Kenneth Williams uttered the words as Julius Caesar in the 1964 romp Carry On Cleo. Film company, Hereford Films, are behind the project, and the first 2 films in the pipeline are Carry On Doctors, followed by Carry On Campus. Co-writer Tim Dawson paid respect to the previous writers of the Carry On series: "These films are a part of British culture and to be carrying on the legacy of Norman Hudis and Talbot Rothwell is a thrill and a responsibility. We intend to be sympathetic to the heritage whilst being unafraid to modernise th...

British film star Hugh Grant's middle name is Mungo. (In fact his full name is Hugh John Mungo Grant. At least he didn't change his name.)

According to a survey commissioned by the distributors for the film The Fifth Estate, 92% of men consider themselves to be good at keeping secrets. (However, thanks to social media, men now typically share a secret with someone within 3 hours of hearing it. The top 10 secrets men can't keep? A friend is having an affair. A friend lied about something. A boss/colleague is having an office romance. Someone is pregnant. Someone has been in trouble with the police. Someone was lying about their job or salary. Someone has had/is having plastic surgery. A friend has had a windfall. A friend/colleague is in financial trouble. A friend/colleague is having trouble in the bedroom department. (It takes women 3 and a half hours.) Just don't forget the saying, "Two can keep a secret, if one of them doesn't know about it." )

80% of Alfonso Cuarón’s film Gravity was composed of digital shots. (Basically this wasn't so much adding special effects to a film, as the special effects being the film.  Each frame took around 50 hours to render fully and if the entire film had been rendered using a single CPU processor, it would have taken about 7,000 years to complete. We have come a long way since Fantasia.) You can read more about the amazing work that went into this film here: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/gravity/

According to the website Goodreads the most abandoned book is  The Casual Vacancy by J K Rowling. (The runners up for the not so prestigious award of being really putdownable were:- Fifty Shades of Grey   by EL James Eat Pray Love  by  Elizabeth Gilbert and surprisingly  The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo  by S tieg Larsson The top five abandoned "classics" were:- Catch 22 Heller’s satirical work, about the madness of the Second World War, introduced its title into the English language. The 1961 book follows the story of Joseph Yossarian, who flies bomber missions, and is convinced the military is trying to get him killed.  (Over 10m copies sold.) The Lord of the Rings The fantasy novel published in 1954 follows the epic journey of hobbits, dwarves, elves and other assorted creatures to destroy the Ring of Power.  It built a legion of fans and was turned into three blockbuster films.  (Over 150 million sold.) Ulys...

Video games in the UK will now be regulated under the Europe-wide PEGI (Pan European Game Information) scheme. (This means that the age rating system for video games will try to stop inappropriate games being sold to children under the age of 12 and give the industry more straightforward rules for rating games according to age. Up till now the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) has provided 15 and 18 certificates, but the BBFC was never tasked with providing 12 certificates for video games, meaning it was technically legal to sell a 12-rated game to younger children, the changes mean anyone selling a 12-certificate game to a child under that age in the UK could be jailed. Parents can find out about the suitability of games on the website - www.askaboutgames.com.) Source Video games are good for you.

Tony Blair's favourite film is Rush Hour. (Never seen it personally.)