DIGGING around in the foetid mud of the Thames among the accumulated rubbish of the past 200 years is a shit way to spend a Saturday, it has emerged.
Guardian-reading Londoners, forever on the lookout for activities both free and educational, are digging out discarded ring-pulls and broken bottles from beneath congealed sewage and calling it fun.
Hannah Tomlinson, aged 38, said to hr daughter: “Your friend James from nursery found false teeth dating from the inter-war years, Ruby! Do you think we’ll be that lucky?
“It definitely isn’t demeaning, standing on the polluted shore of a busy waterway while tourist boats go past staring at us like we’re scavenging dung. They might think we’re bottom-feeders but we’re actually historians, aren’t we? Oh, another Prime bottle.”
Husband Kieran Tomlinson said: “This has to be the lowest yet. I wouldn’t do this for community service.
“Combing through shite in the vain hope of finding a broken clay pipe? Fellow mudlarks clapping in delight when one finds an 19th-century morphine bottle, but nobody cares when I unearth a 1978 Outer Spacers packet? It’s worse than wild swimming.”
A Guardian editor admitted: “Sometimes we print stuff just to see if we can make you do it.”
