Slow bus to Swindon
From Philip French
Sir: In his review of Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled (Books, 31 December) Grey Gowrie recalls an apparently accidental piece of verse he found in a lavatory by Wells Cathedral. The graffito he saw — ‘I’d like to [single syllable] you on a slow bus to Swindon’ — is in fact an obscene local paraphrase of the opening lines of a 1948 hit song by Frank Loesser, a writer-composer who loved monosyllables and is most celebrated for Guys and Dolls. It goes, ‘I’d love to get you on a slow boat to China’ and was performed by, among others, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. Sadly this jaunty song fell into desuetude with the communist victory in China the following year. Perhaps the time has come to revive it.
Philip French London NW5
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