Downstream

down the Yangtze’ – but
didn’t fancy the water: ‘one
gulp of the Thames and you’d
be a goner’. Appearing on
TV-am shortly before his
swim, he said he hoped it
would be ‘over quick’. His
plan was to wait until the tide
had gone out ‘with the rest of
the crap’ and then set off. A
congratulatory telegram from
comedian Spike Milligan
advised him to have a typhoid
shot.