TV Series: On The Buses Season 6

Two days ago I heard about the death of Anna Karen. This made me sad, because she was a part of my young years. She appeared in the television series "On The Buses", which ran from 1969 to 1973. I still consider it to be the best comedy series ever, with certain reservations. The first five seasons are brilliant. The sixth season is good, but not up to the level of the previous seasons. The seventh season is a mess, which should never have been made. The episodes are all standalone stories that can be watched in any order, but you might as well watch them in order. You can skip the seventh season. I've warned you!

Today I watched all seven episodes of the sixth season. I picked this season deliberately, because I don't know it as well as the first five seasons. Yes, it's good, but there were only a few scenes that made me laugh out loud. I concentrated on Anna Karen's performance. In the series she's deliberately made up to look ugly, but in my eyes it gives her a bizarre beauty. I always felt attracted to her.

Now she's gone. She's the last member of the main cast to die. In her final years she was unable to walk and confined to her wheelchair. She died at home, burnt alive after falling asleep while smoking.

Reg Varney
11 July 1916 – 16 November 2008

Stan Butler was the series' main character. He played a bus driver who still lived at home with his mother. His romantic escapades never went further than a quick fumble on the sofa.

Bob Grant
14 April 1932 – 8 November 2003

Jack Harper was a bus conductor and Stan's best friend. He was also single, and it's hinted that he went further with his girlfriends, but we never see anything.

Stephen Lewis
17 December 1926 – 12 August 2015

Cyril Blake, usually called Blakey, is the bus inspector who's always complaining about Stan and Jack's laziness.

Doris Hare
1 March 1905 – 30 May 2000

Stan's mother is always referred to as Mom in the series. The credits list her name as Mabel, but I don't remember her ever being called Mabel.

Anna Karen
19 September 1936 – 22 February 2022

Olive is Stan's sister. A constantly repeated joke is that she's totally blind without her glasses. Is that possible? She's sexually frustrated, always complaining that her husband doesn't fulfil his duties in bed.

Michael Robbins
14 November 1930 – 11 December 1992

Arthur Rudge is Olive's husband. The couple also lives in the same house with Stan and his mother, because Arthur doesn't earn enough to afford his own home. Sometimes he's doing a low paying job, but mostly he's unemployed. There's no romance in the marriage. He's always calling Olive an idiot, useless, etc, and he makes a disgusted face whenever she suggests that they should have an early night. One of the episodes in season six gives a flashback to Arthur meeting Olive. He was a lodger in the house, and one night he came back from the pub drunk and got into Olive's bed by mistake. Mom was disgusted and said they should get married immediately.

I always felt sorry for Olive when Arthur was shouting at her. I wanted to take her in my arms and cuddle her.

She was special to me. The only thing I didn't like about her was the smoking, in the series or in real life. In the end cigarettes killed her.

Rest in peace, Anna Karen. You'll never be forgotten as long as DVDs exist.

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Wonder Woman 1984 (5 Stars)

I missed this film when it was shown in the cinemas last year. I don't remember why. It's possible I was in bed with the flu. I just don't remember. All I can say is that I regret not having seen it in the cinema, all the more after watching it on Blu-ray today.

Apart from a few flashback sequences, the first Wonder Woman film took place in 1918. This film takes place in 1984, as you might have guessed. Diana's lover Steve Trevor is long dead, though the reason for his death isn't named. She's now working at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Her specialities are cultural anthropology and archaeology. She makes friends with Dr. Barbara Minerva, whose specialities are geology, gemology, lithology and cryptozoology. I shan't deny it, I had to look up some of those words. However much I may love the English language, there are still some gaps in my knowledge.

Stolen relics have been delivered to the museum by the FBI for identification. One of the items is considered to be a fake, despite having an inscription in Latin that it will grant anyone one wish if made while touching it. Diana and Barbara each wish for something. Diana wishes that Steve Trevor would return. Barbara wishes that she could be more like Diana. Both wishes are granted.

Without going into too many details about the plot, the object is a Dreamstone, a magic artefact created the Greek God Dolos, the God of Trickery. Wishes are granted, but at the same time something is taken away, usually the thing that the person treasures most. Diana's powers slowly decline. Barbara's friendly nature slowly turns to cruelty.

Barbara turns from this...

... into this.

But at least she gets a better body. That's the reason she wanted to be like Diana.

I have to praise the actress Kristen Wiig who plays Barbara. She was 46 when she appeared in "Wonder Woman 1984", but she has an incredible body. She must work out a lot.

This wonderful lady also appears in the film.

I'll refrain from writing anything else about the plot until I watch the film again.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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My Friend Dahmer (4 Stars)

True Stories #33

Name: Jeffrey Dahmer

Lived: 21 May 1960 – 28 November 1994

Film dates: 1974 to 1978

Film made in 2017

This is a chilling story about the formative years of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. It's told from the perspective of John Backderf, one of Jeffrey's few friends in high school. It was a weird friendship, and John later expressed guilt for the way he treated him. Jeffrey Dahmer was a clown. He did things to shock the others in school or make them laugh. John thought Jeffrey was funny as well, so he encouraged him to do it even more.

What did he do? Jeffrey Dahmer performed the activities of a mentally deficient person. In the words of the film, he spazzed out. He made wailing sounds and moved erratically, finally writhing on the ground as if he were having an epileptic fit. It was hilarious for those who were in on the joke.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a mixed up kid from his early years. His hobby was dissolving dead animals in acid, because he wanted to see what they were like inside. He was able to do this because his father gave him acid that he brought home from work. That's a weird thing for a father to give his son. Later on he cut the meat off dead animals so that he could examine their bones.

Dahmer was having problems with his sexuality. He realised that he was homosexual, but he felt guilty about it. This was one of the things that contributed to the young boy becoming mentally unbalanced. When his parents got divorced, he was pushed totally over the edge. And his alcoholic consume can't be underestimated. He drank strong spirits every day, even in breaks between school classes. Didn't the teachers notice, or didn't they care?

One of the film's most unnerving scenes is his high school prom. He invited a girl called Bridget to the prom. Maybe he wanted to fit in, but it's more likely that he wanted to overcome his homosexual urges by having a relationship with a girl. It didn't work out. Soon after the start he walked out, saying he wanted to pee, but he never came back. He sat in his car eating until the prom was over.

Could Dahmer's killing spree have been prevented? Maybe. Maybe not. Those are questions that can never be answered. It's easy for Dahmer's friends and school teachers to blame themselves for not doing more, but it's possible he would have become a killer anyway. We'll never know.

Success Rate:  - 1.1

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I, Tonya (5 Stars)

True Stories #32

Name: Tonya Harding

Lived: 12 November 1970 – still alive

Film dates: 1974 to 2003, mostly 1985 to 1994

Film made in 2017

"There's no such thing as the truth. Everyone has their own truth".

I hate this quote, spoken by Tonya Harding at the end of the film. The nature of truth is an ages old philosophical concept. When Pontius Pilate spoke to Jesus Christ, he asked him "What is truth?" and Jesus didn't answer. Naively, I would say that truth is what really happened and what exists, but 20th Century philosophers have written endless books questioning this naive definition. The main argument against the definition is that it's a tautology. If truth is defined as what happened, the statement can be reduced to "Truth is truth". Philosophers prefer to define truth as what's perceived, so it's something subjective. That brings us back to Tonya Harding's words. Everyone perceives the truth differently.

Maybe we can better understand truth if we ask what the opposite of truth is. Most people would answer lies, but I don't believe it's that easy. There are also mistakes. Let me give a fictional case as an example.

Bill shoots Fred in front of Lucy. Betty is standing close by, looking in the opposite direction. Lucy pulls the gun out of Bill's hand to stop him shooting again.

1. Lucy says "Bill shot Fred".

2. Bill says "Lucy shot Fred".

3. Betty says "Lucy shot Fred".

Statement 1 is the truth, based on the naive definition that the truth is what really happened.

Statement 2 is a lie, because Bill is denying his guilt.

Statement 3 is a mistake. Betty turned round and saw the gun in Lucy's hand, so she assumed Lucy had just shot Fred.

Let's take this example a step further. Betty rings the police and tells them that Lucy shot Fred. Lucy is arrested, and in court she's found guilty, based on the testimony of the two witnesses, Bill and Betty. So the decision of the jurors, the judge and the whole legal system is that Lucy is lying, even though she's the only one who told the truth.

This started out as a simple example, but let's make it even more complicated. Lucy's lawyer tells her she has no chance of winning in court, so she should plead guilty to reduce her sentence. (In English law, pleading guilty reduces the sentence by 50%). So Lucy lies to the judge, saying that she shot Fred, and she only gets a 10 year sentence instead of 20 years.

Now nobody is telling the truth!

This simple fictional case now has implications, making it so complex that it could be the subject of a Philosophy PhD thesis.

There are other examples of truths and non-truths.

"God exists" vs "God doesn't exist".

Millions of people have been killed arguing over these statements.

"The Earth is flat" vs "The Earth is round".

This is a more difficult pair of statements, at least from a philosophical viewpoint. One of the statements is true, the other false, but most people have no way of proving what they say. They either rely on the proof of their own two eyes, or they accept the words of experts on faith.

Now for another example from my own past. In 1997 I decided to leave my wife. I explained my reasons, but she didn't understand them. I even gave her two weeks to change the way she was acting, but she didn't see any fault in herself. As far as she was concerned, I was leaving her for another woman.

About 10 years later she discovered that I'd had another girlfriend while we were separated. (There were actually several, but she only found out about one). That was all the proof she needed. Now she knew I'd left her for another woman. It was no good me telling her that the relationship didn't start until we were already separated.

The reconciliation with my ex-wife tentatively began sometime round about 2007. It culminated with me moving back in with her in 2016. I felt it was the right thing to do. The biggest problem is that after all this time she still doesn't know why I left her. She's told our children, her relatives and all her friends that I left her for another woman. She can't go back on it now. Three of our children believe her, one doesn't. Whenever I overhear her telling someone that I left her for another woman I tell her she's lying, although I know it isn't a lie. It's a mistake. It's a terrible mistake that she's unable to put right.

Now for the reason for Tonya Harding's words at the beginning of this post.

"There's no such thing as the truth. Everyone has their own truth".

The film is based on interviews with Tonya, her ex-husband, her mother and a few friends. Their stories don't agree. For instance, Tonya says that her husband Jeff was always hitting her. Jeff says that he never hit her, because he wasn't that sort of person. I know which one of the two I choose to believe. The film itself follows Tonya's version of the truth, but every time someone disagrees he faces the camera and says it happened differently.

The central point of the film is the incident on 6th January 1994, when Tonya's main rival, Nancy Kerrigan, was attacked and injured. Jeff tells the viewers that the incident is always different, depending on who's telling the story. Tonya didn't have to go to prison. She was given a ridiculously high fine, which she could only pay after appearing in a television news programme. The worst thing for her was that she was banned from professional skating for the rest of her life.

So she became a boxer.

This is an incredible film that grows on me every time I watch it. It was a big mistake not to include it in my top 100 films list. I've already made up my mind to start my new rolling top 100 list today. What I mean by rolling is that the list won't be fixed, it'll be regularly updated. I'll keep it online for my readers to check what I like most, but it can only be understood as a snapshot of what films I like most today, not what I'll like most next year, next month or even tomorrow.

Success Rate:  + 2.9

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WWF 1997.02.16 - In Your House: Final Four

Location: UTC Arena, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Commentators: Jerry Lawler, Jim Ross

The foreign language commentators are introduced.

These two guys make me want to learn Spanish. They're introduced as the Spanish announcers, but that's only their language, not their nationality. Hugo Savinovich is from Ecuador, Carlos Cabrera is from Colombia. They have incredible energy. Whenever they can be heard, they talk really excitedly. It became a trope of the WWF/WWE PPVs that someone was slammed through the Spanish Announce Table in almost every PPV.

Jean Brassard and Ray Rougeau provide the commentary in French. They're both Canadians. They're not as wild as their Spanish colleagues.

Match 1. Marc Mero vs Leif Cassidy

Leif Cassidy is a wrestler who changed his name several names during his career. His real name was Al Savern, but he joined the WWF in 1993 as Steve Moore. From 1995 on he called himself Avatar. In 1996 he became Shinobi, and then Leif Cassidy. He wrestled mostly as part of the tag team, The Rockers. He later became known as Al Snow.

Marc Mero was the favourite to win the match, but Leif had the advantage from the start. Marc's manager Sable was at ringside. Maybe I should put the word manager in inverted commas. As I've said before, the so-called managers were either female eyecandy or annoying men who interfered in the matches.

This is the view the front row fans had.

Sable got involved whenever necessary. She slapped Leif's face when he fell out of the ring. Leif is no gentleman. He chased Sable round the ring. We never found out what he wanted to do after he caught her, because Marc Mero took advantage of the distraction, attacking him outside the ring and then pinning him while he was weakened.

Marc Mero was billed as the Wild Man (sometimes written as Wildman), but Sable was the Wild Woman. After Marc left the WWF, Sable used his entrance music for herself, "Wild Cat" by Jim Johnston. It suited her better.

Match 2. Six man tag team, Faarooq/Crush/Savio Vega vs Goldust/Flash Funk/Bart Gunn

The Nation of Domination is getting bigger all the time. The last time we saw them on Raw there were seven of them, including the manager Clarence Mason. Now there are ten.

It took a long time for the match to get started. Goldust, Flash Funk and Bart Gunn (a strange team) came in separately, which took four minutes. The Nation of Domination entered together, but they still needed three minutes, including the time they needed to pose in the ring. The match itself lasted seven minutes, which means that the entrance was just as long as the match.

The match was unruly. The referee lost control. Most of the time all six men were in the ring. Faarooq pinned Bart Gunn for the win. He should stay with his brother Billy.

Match 3. Intercontinental title, Rocky Maivia vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Rocky Maivia won the Intercontinental title from Hunter Hearst Helmsley on Thursday Raw Thursday. Now Triple H has a chance to win the belt back.

The two fighters are evenly matched, until Goldust comes to ringside to mock Triple H. While Triple H is distracted, Rocky pins him.

After Rocky leaves, Goldust climbs into the ring to attack Triple H. He stops when a woman in the audience stands up and tries to strangle Marlena. Two security guards grab the women and escort her out of the arena.

This match is a good example of the differences in commentary styles between Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. Jim is an unbiased commentator. He calls it as he sees it. Jerry always has his favourites, in this case Triple H, and he supports them in a partisan manner. When the opponent is successful, he accuses them of cheating. Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler are always arguing at the commentary table.

Match 4. Tag team championship, British Bulldog/Owen Hart vs. Doug Furnas/Philip Lafon 

When I first saw Doug Furnas and Philip Lafon on Monday Night Raw, I assumed they were jobbers, not to be taken seriously. Now they're here again, on a Pay-Per-View, so I must have been wrong. They don't even have a tag team name. 

But wait a moment. British Bulldog and Owen Hart don't have a name for their tag team either, and they're the champions! I shouldn't jump to any assumptions.

Bulldog and Owen make a valiant attempt to defend their tag team championship belt, despite hard resistance from Furnas and Lafon. Bulldog and Owen still have problems with one another. Whenever a move goes wrong, they stop to argue, or they even fight one another.

In the end Owen Hart hits Philip Lafon with his Slammy Award statue, allowing British Bulldog to pin him. The referee sees this, so he disqualifies Bulldog and Owen. Furnas and Lafon win the match, but Bulldog and Owen retain the title, because the championship titles can only change by submission or pinfall. This is good enough for Owen, but Bulldog is angry and throws the belt on the floor when it's given to him.

Match 5. WWF Championship, Bret Hart vs Steve Austin vs Undertaker vs Vader

This is the Final Four match that gives this In Your House Pay-Per-View its name. When it was originally scheduled, it was planned that the winner would be given a title shot at Wrestlemania. After Shawn Michaels vacated the title, Gorilla Monsoon decided that the winner would become the new WWF champion.

A quick word about the name of the main title of the WWF. Officially it's called the WWF Heavyweight Championship. The word Heavyweight appears on the belt, or at least on this version of the belt. Every few years there was a new design. The champion's weight isn't relevant, although it's usually a large wrestler who wins the championship. In the Olympic sport of wrestling heavyweight is 100 kg (220lbs) or more, but the WWF/WWE has had a heavyweight champion as light as 175 lbs (79 kg), Rey Mysterio. On air, the title holder is usually called the World Wrestling Federation Champion, omitting the word Heavyweight. I'm inconsistent. Sometimes I'll say it WWF Champion, sometimes WWF Heavyweight Champion, depending on my mood.

These are the rules of the Final Four match. It seems like a cross between the Royal Rumble and a normal match.

It's a very brutal match. This is Vader as he enters the ring.

This is what he looks like five minutes later. The commentators call it an eye injury, but if you look close you can see that it isn't. He has a cut along the side of his head, but when he rolls on the floor the blood flows into his left eye.

This is the only time I've ever seen Vader take his mask off during a fight. It was necessary. The blood was spreading underneath his mask, making it difficult for him to see.

The first wrestler to be eliminated is Stone Cold Steve Austin, when Bret Hart throws him over the top rope. This is a repeat of what happened at the Royal Rumble last month, but this time the referees see it. Steve Austin leaves the arena, but five minutes later he returns and attacks Bret Hart. The no disqualification rule didn't reckon with things like this happening. Six officials are needed to restrain him.

The Undertaker eliminates Vader.

Bret Hart eliminates the Undertaker and becomes the new WWF Heavyweight Champion.

After the match Sycho Sid comes to the ring and yells at Bret like a madman. It's what he does best. Tomorrow on Monday Night Raw he'll challenge Bret for the title. Is that even fair? It doesn't give Bret enough time to recover his strength.

John Rabe (5 Stars)

True Stories #31

Name: John Rabe

Lived: 23 November 1882 – 5 January 1950

Film dates: November to December 1937

Film made in 2009

John Rabe was one of the greatest heroes of the 20th Century, but his name is hardly known outside of China. In his home country he never found recognition for what he'd done. When he returned home to Germany in 1938 he was considered a traitor, because he spoke out against Germany's ally Japan. After the Second World War the allied forces considered him to be a Nazi, so he wasn't able to work and lived in poverty.

John Rabe was the head of Siemens in Nanking. The film says nothing about his life prior to November 1937, so I'll have to fill it in. He was sent to China in 1910, so he missed the horrors of the First World War. As a patriotic German he supported Adolf Hitler when he came into power. He was naive. He thought Hitler was a good man. As a German living so far from home in a pre-Internet age I would probably have thought the same.

He didn't just love Germany, he loved his new country. He cared for his Chinese workers. It wasn't just about them doing their work. He taught them other things, such as the Nazi salute. He wanted to make good Germans out of them.

Then Japan invaded China. The conquest didn't happen overnight. It takes months to overpower a large country. When the attacks on Nanking began, John Rabe saw it as his responsibility to protect the Chinese. First he protected his workers, and then he allowed people from the city to take refuge within the Siemens compound.

When the Japanese attacked, John Rabe called his workers to hide beneath a German flag. As soon as they saw the swastika, the Japanese aircraft turned away. It may seem strange to us looking back, but the Chinese saw the swastika as the symbol of hope.

The atrocities of the Japanese occupying forces were horrific, but what's worst is that they considered their actions noble. The Japanese army didn't keep prisoners, they killed any Chinese soldiers that they captured. Japanese officers who were descended from samurai showed off the enemies they'd decapitated, and the photos were published in Japanese newspapers. The Germans also carried out atrocities, but at least they didn't boast about them.

Valerie Dupres was the headmistress of the International Girls College in Nanking.

Robert Wilson was an American doctor struggling to save lives, a difficult task when he had to perform operations with anaesthetics.

With the help of Valerie Dupres, Dr. Wilson and a few others, John Rabe created a safety zone that was (mostly) off limits to Japanese soldiers. It offered protection to 200,000 Chinese civilians.

Over the last 70 years it's become customary to talk about war crimes. It's expected that wars are carried out in a civil matter. The Geneva Convention is older, predating both world wars, but not every country adhered to it. Japan definitely didn't. At the risk of sounding cynical, it's my belief that wars can't be fought fairly. The main priority of a war is to win, not to minimise the casualties of the other side. That's something Vladimir Putin understands. He doesn't care about collateral damage, as long as Russia wins. When Russian forces are marching across Europe slaughtering men, women and children, it will be a mistake to retaliate fairly. The only thing a despot like Putin understands is force. If we don't fight back hard, he'll never stop.

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