Great post, Azizi - thanks! I'm glad to be reassured that these old rhymes are far from dying out.

Interesting point about "beestay"'s origins - I spelled it that way because Mark did so above, but I can also remember hearing it sung as "veestay". This was in California where there was/is a lot of Spanish spoken (I was saying Ay Caramba DECADES before Bart Simpson did) so you could well have a point. If you've got any links to some of the websites you mention, I for one would be quite interested in having a look.

Thanks again :-)