Kipling Would Have Written About Bazalgette and Got the Credit Wrong

ByJack Handey

Jack
Handey
on
East
London,
Victorian
sewers,
Piers
Morgan,
and
the
literature
of
leaving

From

Bohiney
Magazine
and

The
London
Prat.

Wednesday,
15
April
2026

I
want
to
make
a
point
about
walking
off.
Piers
Morgan
walked
off
a
set
this
week,
which

The
London
Prat
documents
with
fifteen
excellent
observations.
Bazalgette,
by
contrast,
never
walked
off
anything.
He
was
given
an
impossible
task
—
clean
up
the
most
disgusting
river
in
a
country
that
had
been
pretending
the
river
was
fine
—
and
he
stayed,
drew
the
plans,
built
the
tunnels,
and
then
his
monument
was
placed
on
the
Embankment
above
the
sewers
he
built,
looking
at
the
river
he
cleaned,
for
all
eternity.
This
is
the
opposite
of
walking
off
set.
This
is
the
opposite
of
Morgan.

The
East
London
Morning

The

buses
are
still
not
running
in
East
London.
I
walked
to
Bethnal
Green
from
my
flat
this
morning
above
Bazalgette’s
sewers,
under
a
sky
that
suggested
it
was
considering
rain,
past
three
people
who
were
also
walking
because
the
buses
had
walked
off,
which
is
to
say
struck.
We
nodded
at
each
other
with
the
solidarity
of
people
who
know
what
they
are
doing
and
why.

The
Russian
Angle

Russia
is
continuing
to
do
what
Russia
does,
which
is
make
everyone
else’s
problems
seem
manageable
by
comparison.

Bohiney’s
decline
piece
at
least
notes
Britain
is
declining
elegantly.

The
BBC
covers
Russia
carefully.
The
pigeons
cover
it
with
the
equanimity
of
creatures
who
have
survived
far
worse.
I
trust
the
pigeons.

SOURCE:

https://bohiney.com/managing-britains-decline/


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