TRIVIA BITS 13 APRIL

 

• The opera singer Enrico Caruso practised in the bath, while accompanied by a pianist in a nearby room.
• The opposite of 'cross-eyed' is 'wall-eyed'.
• The orang-utan's warning signal to would be aggressors is a loud belch.
• The ordinary house-fly beats its wings nearly two hundred times a second.
• The original name of Los Angeles was El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles del rio Porciuncula, translating into:The Village of our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Porciuncula River.
• The original source of the dye 'sepia' was the cuttlefish.
• The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, 'Aladdin was a little Chinese boy.'
• The original title for the best seller 'Gone with the wind' was 'Ba! Ba! Black sheep'.
• The Oscar statuette was designed by MGM's art director, Cedric Gibbons, in 1928. The design has remained unchanged, except for getting a higher pedestal in the 1940's.
• The 'Over the rainbow' scene from 'The Wizard of Oz' was originally cut from the film because it was 'slow' and added nothing to the plot. It was added again at the last moment.