WITHOUT wishing to get too scatalogical, I never thought effluence could be so interesting.

Last night's documentary on BBC2 Boys From The Brown Stuff was a hugely entertaining look at the men who keep London's sewers flowing smoothly.

This wasn't a programme to watch while having your tea as its subject matter was - by nature - lavatorial.

And yet the crew featured toiling underground were such charming companions with a great sense of humour.

Then again if you spend your working life knee deep in waste you'd have to have be able to laugh at things.

Too often documentaries take the easy option and try and make their subjects figures of fun.

It would have been all too easy to do the same thing here - especially with the love-lorn soul who found that talking about his work wasn't the greatest chat up line.

But the film makers went beyond the obvious and gave us a much more well-rounded portrait of a gang who perform an essential role.

Maybe because their lives could be seen as an allegory for modern life - I don't really need to explain surely - but there was something almost Zen-like about some of the thoughts of the underground crew.

Who would have thought that life in the sewers could be so spiritual?