Really, what’s not to love? That’s why I recommend this BBC radio program about the desperate state of London’s current sewer system. In the late 1850s (immediately following the action of A Spy in the House), Victorian engineer Joseph Bazalgette designed and built a modern sewage system for the city of London. 150 years later, London has outgrown it, and debate now rages about what to do next.
Every time there’s a heavy rain, the sewers overflow into the river itself. The river’s full of refuse. The fish are dying. All they need now is an unusually hot May, and the Great Stink of 1858 could replay itself.. The program is called Costing the Earth.
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