Now that I supposed to play the role of doting grandparent - apparently doting is a necessary attribute of grandparents - I am revisiting half-forgotten nursery rhymes. In the interim between my teaching them to my children and now, people have been messing about with nursery rhymes. In the well-known, and highly irritating, rhyme concerning the wheels on the bus going round and round there has been some violation of the original (i.e. the state of the rhyme when I first learned it). After the compulsory first verse about the cyclical quality of wheels there are, according to the BBC rhymes site, a number of verses that weren't there in the original. Now the driver on the bus goes "Any more fares, any more fares, any more fares" ... etc ... all day long. At first I was merely annoyed that the BBC had felt entitled to insert a new verse. Then I realized that it made no sense. When employees of bus companies used to shout "Any more fares" it was the conductors who used to do it; not the drivers who were busily engaged driving the damned buses. And then, when all the conductors were sacked, it was because buses had become front entrance and you paid the drivers on the way in. Drivers never shouted "Any more fares?".
So why has this daft verse been inserted? It is my my view that extra verses had to be inserted to make up for the ones expunged from the song. Which ones? The ones that say the mums on the bus go chatter, chatter, chatter and the dads on the bus go nod, nod, nod. They have gone! Why??? I bet you it is because they are considered "sexist". Pah! Hogwash! I am not singing these new verses to my grandchild - so there!.
