Fatbergs are the true time capsules of all we'd like to forget | Eva Wiseman

They are every sin we've ever committed, shoved into a small hole and covered with hot grease. We get the celebrities we deserve and we have truly earned the fatbergWhen we weren't concentrating, Britain's fatbergs became international celebrities. And that's on us, that's something we're going to have to deal with - we created our own Kardashian clan, and a special house for them in the sewer under KFC Aldgate East. We Frankensteined this thing, this beast, out of sanitary towels and chip fat, and then some condoms, and then the guilt that came with the condom night, that oily shame, and then some small plastic pens, of the sort you get in betting shops. Every sin we've ever committed, shoved into a small hole and covered with hot grease. The fatberg is the portrait Britain hides in its attic, a true representation of everything we really are, all the things that come out of us. And while we went on working, flirting, dousing ourselves in duty free Chanel and glitter gel to look pretty for the builders, down there, in our private parts beneath the pavement, the bits we wanted to hide were growing.I lived in Whitechapel in east London for 10 years, above the notorious "Whitechapel monster", a fatberg the weight of 11 double-decker buses. It makes sense that after years of blockages across the world, it was this one, under a site so associated with nightmarish murders and Victorian ruin, that pushed its way into our imaginations and on to the A-list. And while I am certain I never flushed moisturising toilet wipes down the loo, there is surely a part of me and my awfulness compressed in that pumice-like mass, a beast that inspires as many metaphors as it does reflexive gags. I am fatberg. Continue reading...