Fares, Please

Yesterday, for reasons too tedious to go into, I was obliged to board a bus and buy a ticket - i.e. exchange cash for a ticket. I had not realised what an outlandish piece of behaviour this now is. The driver greeted my request with a look of mingled astonishment, bewilderment and pity, and, having reluctantly printed a ticket, motioned me to bide awhile beside his cab. He then launched into an interminable monologue in which he explained, first, the various ticketing (and of course non-ticketing) options available to me for this particular journey, weighing their relative merits, then advised me on the pros and cons of the season ticket as against the Oyster card, entered into a history of said Oyster card, explained its uses and virtues in minute detail, offered a beguiling glimpse of the all-Oyster travel utopia of the near future, permitted himself a digression on card fraud... On and on he went, as I stood there swaying, trying to remain upright, and, quite illegally, blocking his view. Whenever he paused for breath - which was rarely - I tried to make my excuses and escape to a seat, but, like the ancient mariner, he would fix me again with his inescapable, fare-fixated eye and resume. Was this, I wondered, some kind of hidden camera stunt? Apparently not. Was he having his little joke on me? No, he was deadly serious. It was simply a case of a man with a compendious knowledge of, and a burning love for, his subject, bursting with enthusiasm to share his love with anyone who would listen (however reluctantly). He was still in full flow, sharing away, when I thanked him, with every appearance of sincerity, and staggered off to my seat. Anybody want to know anything about ticketing systems in London?