THE BIG BUS

Some of us have favourite toys, some of us have special blankets. You know what I'm talking about? Yes, exactly! COMFORT OBJECTS. Well, it is perhaps unusual to think of my next choice for SPIRITUAL WEIGHTLIFTER, in this category, but there you go, if nothing else I'm unpredictable.

The Big Bus (but not this Big Bus, by the way) is my 10-year old son's Comfort Blanket.

"Why so?" I hear you cry, "How on earth can a wee boy have a movie as his comfort blanket?" Well, as you might guess, I'm going to tell you.

It all started one cold November evening about 5 years ago, in deepest, darkest, Rickmansworth. Euan was feeling a bit down, and his mum was out for the night. I promised to cook him his favourite food at the time (in the way that kids have that same-food-every-night thing, until they sicken of it and move onto something else for a month or two). His 'food-of-the-moment' was pizza, and little did I know I was about make (probably) the most catastrophic decision of my parenting life. I overcooked the pizza! So much so did I overcook it, that when Euan, with his already dickie tummy, ate it, it stayed inside him for all of about 10 mins before he threw it all up over his bedclothes. [The reason this was the "most catastrophic decision of my parenting life" was that to this day Euan still will not touch pizza - my incompetence at merely heating through a frozen product has made my son pizza-scarred for life!]

"Now what the h-Ecclefechan has this got to do with The Big Bus?" I hear you cry. Well, Dear Reader, I'm about to tell you. When Euan came downstairs to tell (and, er... show) me he'd been sick, I happened to be watching my favouritist ever comedy film, THE BIG BUS. In the UK it is rarely shown on TV, but it happened to be on that particular night. And Euan loved it! The thought of an out-of-control, sabotaged, nuclear-powered bus hurtling through the heart of America seemed to immediately take his mind off his food-related mishap.

He was transfixed to the screen. A small smile initially appeared on his wee mouth, and soon this turned to chuckles and then guffaws of laughter - to the extent that he asked me to play it again (luckily, I had it on video) as soon as it finished.

And so was initiated one of those traditional family events and, despite its genesis, a wonderful father-son moment has developed between us - no one else in the family really 'gets' it - it's special to us. It's got to the point now, that whenever the wee man feels ill, he says to me "Dad, I think this calls for The Big Bus" and I instantly know what he means!

What more can be said about the quality of a film (by the way, Citizen Kane it ain't) to entertain, than its ability to make a 5 year old boy forget he's just projectile vomited all over his favourite Thomas the Tank Engine quilt cover? It predates 'Airplane' in terms of its gag-a-minute surreality and it predates 'Speed' for the bus-that-can't-slow-down-cos-it's-got-a-bomb-on-board-ishness.

The gags are great (well, *I* think they are, so there!), in this author's humble opinion, far outstripping any other comedy I have ever seen. Joseph Bologna and Stockard Channing head an all-star cast thundering from New York to Denver on a nuclear-powered bus, which is supposed to make the trip with no stops. The bus is a luxury vehicle, complete with, of all things, a piano bar, swimming pool, bowling alley and dining room.

For me the stand-out gag is this: an elderly lady, runaway from home, tells a doubting priest how happy she was that god put her in the seat next to him. The Father unexpectedly launches into a rant, "If it was god that put you here, why didn't he give you a fancy window seat like mine? I, Kudos, a doubter luxuriate in a window seat, while you, aging with age, get older yet in that disgrace of an aisle seat! Where is your god now old woman?!" The visibly shell-shocked senior citizen responds, "Jesus, I'm sorry I asked!"

So if you know a pizza-phobic, seek out The Big Bus, it very well may serve you the way it has wee Euan! Forget antibiotics, The Big Bus should be available on prescription!