‘Tis the season of Holidailies and, much like last year’s almost-successful run of daily postings (initially typed as ‘positings’, also apt), I am going to use this opportunity to nerd out a bit each day.

Oh, and there might be a bit of festive cheer and/or improvised/half-remembered recipes along the way.

This first entry in the ‘Hopefully, Not Only Megan Finds This Interesting’ series was inspired by watching ‘Jessica Jones’.*

I promise that it is not a huge spoiler to tell you that an incident in the series involves a bus. A bad thing. An M57 Crosstown bus. That is all I will tell you about the series.

Except that Charo makes a surprise appearance in the penultimate episode and fucking NAILS it. (Probably. I’m only on episode 6.)

Seeing the (spoiler) bus (Spoiler) number so (SPOILER) prominently displayed, and (GAH STAHP) so (YOU’RE RUINING MY LIFE) often made me wonder if that was a legit bus route, or a made-up-for-tv-and-movies thing. Like those phone numbers unavailable for public use in many countries because they are needed by the Great Bitch Goddess Showbusiness.

But apparently not. It’s a real bus route that goes through Hell’s Kitchen.

Though I didn’t find evidence of invented bus routes in my evening of Googling, I did find out that the London Underground has a Film Office.** Similarly, the MTA in New York has guides on how to obtain film permits on their website, as well as a helpful list of ‘memorable’ movies with scenes in the NYC subway. Though, their inclusion of Maid in Manhattan in this list, and calling it ‘recent’, makes me think that maybe the page is a titch out of date.*** Proceed with caution. Mind the gaps (in movie history).

While there are Wikipedia pages for ‘List of films set on trains‘ and ‘Rail transport films‘, there’s nothing for buses. Maybe I’ll start one with Speed, It Happened One Night, and the classic Quick Change, in which, I think, a bus driver refuses to take a $50 bill (keeping the change) as fare? Even as a child, that took me right out of the damned movie. Idiot.

In my largely unfruitful searches for fictional tv/movie buses, I did found a couple of interesting real-life stories, though:

One is about a couple of old folks’ homes in Germany that have installed fake bus stops outside. These are for dementia patients; the sad reality is that they a) give them somewhere to go that gives them a sense of purpose and normality and b) it helps dissuade them from actually straying from the premises. It’s a nice, but sad thing.

A nice, but daft thing? A pub landlord in East Grinstead (big shout out to East Grinstead) who set up a bus stop outside his pub to lure in customers. It worked. And the local council might actually add it to a real bus route.

Speaking of buses, the end of biking season is looming, leading me to think to ponder the Big Questions: Should I buy a December bus pass, or hope that the freezing rain predicted for today is a mere temporary smudge on the Bikeable Days of 2015 calendar? Stay tuned for the (undoubtedly) riveting answer in the coming days.

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* If only I had learned about mind control to make y’all think this was more interesting, eh?