Arts and Literature Pub Quiz

To celebrate our recent partnership with ITV's The Chase, we've been brushing up on our general knowledge. Whether you're a sucker for a book fact or queen of the musical, check out our 10 favourite arts and literature facts that would have the Chasers scratching their heads:

Got a shelf full of books you haven't touched? Well, there's a word for that in Japan. 'Tsundoku' is used to depict the act of buying lots of books, but not actually making time to read them! SOURCE
Step aside rofl and CBA – it's not just the young ‘uns who have brought new-fangled words into our vocabulary. Shakespeare is responsible for introducing words such as 'swagger' and 'fashionable' into everyday speak. Lol. SOURCE
They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but the greats of the movie world would give it a good try. The 1976 hit film Rocky took just 28 days to shoot. SOURCE
Actor Ryan Gosling is more famed for making women swoon with his dashing good looks than his great singing voice. But that didn't stop him being offered a place in the Backstreet Boys. It didn't come off, which is a shame as we would have loved to see Ryan stepping off a stool to emphasise a key change. SOURCE
If you think Queen's music is genius, you will be pleased to hear the band members are too. Guitarist Brian May has a PhD in astrophysics. SOURCE
Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan fiction called Master of the Universe, with Ana and Christian based on Bella and Edward Cullen. But then the manuscript was re-written as an original piece. SOURCE.

It seems John Steinbeck had a dose of the "dog ate my homework" when he wrote Of Mice And Men. His puppy, Toby, is said to have eaten the original manuscript. SOURCE
Until recently Warner Music owned the rights to the universal Happy Birthday To You song. The company coined in plenty from royalties, but one use it didn't charge for was when Curiosity Rover sang it to the planet Mars a year after it landed there. SOURCE
The Oscars love a Disney film as much as we do. Beauty and the Beast was the first animated film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. SOURCE
Artists are known for using interesting techniques. Painter Jackson Pollock used cigarettes to create his works, Turner prize winner Chris Ofili used elephant dung and Picasso would mix his paints with sand, sawdust and metal shavings.

SOURCE

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/79070 ‬

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/chris-ofili-2543

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/10758308/Why-Picassos-palettes-were-a-work-of-art-in-themselves.html

Stand by for more top tips on hot topics such as geography and nature - check out our blog to read them here first!