[basil ransome-davies]

I'm with Jayne on contractions, & in any case if you're good enough you shouldn't even be thinking of them. Plurals of 3-letter words OK, I'd say.

Main problem: Betjeman tied his poem to a particular 1950s storm in a teacup over language-use & class (google 'U and non-U English' if need be for clarification). Both have been extensively modified over the past 50+ years. Hence the issue is to find a contemporary equivalent to the giveaway euphemised vocabulary of yesteryear's counter-jumpers. I haven't cracked it yet.