In early 2018 the Museum of London will welcome the arrival of a new and somewhat toxic exhibit, a fatberg.

Fatbergs are real, I’m not making this up. They are found in sewers and are the congealed amalgamation of oils, fats, diapers, wet wipes, and all manner of things that are not supposed to be washed down drains. Of course the mass also traps effluence and other rotting debris that finds its way round the U-bend. As a result, fatbergs are rather pungent.

This year the staff of Thames Water utility company in London had the unsavory task of breaking up a whopper of a fatberg, measuring 820 feet and weighing an immense 143 tons (to give it some perspective the average car weighs about 1.5 – 2 tons, and a double decker bus weighs about 12 tons). It took them weeks with power hoses to break down the mass, fortunately the majority of it was able to be converted into biofuel.

However one cube, about the size of a shoe box, has been air dried and carefully placed in a sealed unit – it really is rather smelly -for public display.

Airfare to London, even for the immensely curious, is rather a lot to check out a lump of dried waste, so here to quench your inquisitiveness is a picture of a London fatberg.