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Paris Sewers

Now to a story we can all relate too, but don't think about much.... and it's probably better that way.

It also sees the return of someone we haven't seen on this program for a few years... Philip Williams has recently taken up the London post so we thought we'd ease him in gently ...a nice easy postcard from one of the world's favourite cities.

You’d think he’d appreciated the thought?...... but, as you’ll see, you just can't please some people!

Eiffel tower

Music

24:00

Williams in front of tower

Williams: Paris in spring. Could there be a more seductive city, the very essence of life itself, distilled into an elixir of excitement, passion and possibilities. Every one of the senses saturated.

24:12

Cameraman: Hey Philip?

Williams: Yeah?

Cameraman: Will you get out of the shot please?

Music

Arc de Triomphe

Williams: They promised me an exotic location, a side of Paris that tourists never see, a culmination of all human endeavour, something to do with water. The Seine perhaps.

24:33

Man on phone

Bursini: Oh… it’ll take us about 20 minutes to get there.

24:45

RIS guys

Williams: The call has come. We have our orders. A rescue mission and there’s no time to lose.

24:54

As we power through the Parisian traffic, you can feel the tension and I wonder quietly to myself, what the hell am I doing?

25:03

Williams suits up

Williams: I'm ready for something I'm not sure what. The perfect fashion accessories. Paris, I'm ready for you.

25:19

Williams goes down drain

You’ve seen the beating heart of Paris, now it’s time to see the bowels. I get all the good jobs, don’t I?

25:35

I’ve spent quite a lot of my career in the proverbial but never quite as directly as this.

25:48

Mushie feeling under your feet, I wonder what that is?

But enough of this crap, this is serious business. I'm with the rapid intervention squad with the Parisian water department; a sewer de force and we are men with a merdie mission.

Williams and Bursini in sewer

Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, these men drop everything when we drop something from above, a flushed diamond ring, a watch. In today’s case a set of keys down the gurgler.

26:23

With a seventy five per cent success rate, theirs is a proud record of recovery, a trained eye that can spot a sparkle in the splodge.

26:36

I had been hoping for a snow-dome or an Eiffel Tower key ring, but a poo soaked knife will have to do. Just a sample of the many and varied treasures that flow in these rivulets of the forsaken.

26:55

Bursini: We’ve looked for cats… crocodiles…

Williams: Crocodiles?

Bursini: snakes… snakes – an anaconda… kittens… jewellery… weapons… pistols… knives… telephones…

Williams: Telephones?

27:10

Bursini: notes – banknotes… money… these are the things we come and look for in the sewers.

Williams: Philippe Bursini has devoted the past 22 years of his life raking this muck, I admit a quarter of a century in a rat-infested, pong permeated, claustrophobic tunnel is not exactly my thing but that’s just me.

27:46

For Philippe, everyday he feels like Indiana Jones.

Bursini and Williams

Bursini: Because the sewer network is so vast there are about 2,500 kilometres of sewers. It’s like being in a small forest… so in small or large sewers there’s always danger. You have to be careful, so it’s a taste of adventure.

28:04

Williams: While he digs, I digress, pointing my nostrils in the direction of adventure, which doesn’t really work because it all smells the same: pretty bad.

28:32

Williams to camera

One of the scary things about going through these tunnels is the thought that perhaps you could get lost in here. Your light could go out, you’d have no idea where you were except, fortunately, there is the road] sign, telling you exactly where you are, that correspond exactly to what’s up above.

28:44

Another thing I love about here is the egalitarian nature of the place. Your Parisian poos are all mixed together, from presidents to the paupers, just go with the flow.

29:00

Which takes us back to Philippe whose search for the missing car keys is bearing fruit.

29:12

Williams: Smelly but happy, we head for home, the triumphs aren’t always this sweet, sometimes when the police call them out, they find murder weapons or worse still, victims or bits thereof.

29:22

As the last of the lamplight dances its final waltz on this subterranean Seine, it’s not with huge regret that I must say au revoir.

29:35

Philippe hands lost keys to man on street

These are the moments Philippe lives for.

29:46

Sewer

Williams: Next time you pull the chain, remember your goodbyes are someone else’s hellos. And here amongst the flotsam and jetsam of society, there is harmony, peace and rats. Some people just don’t appreciate it.

29:56

Credits

Reporter: Philip Williams

Camera: John Benes

Editor: Mark Douglas

Research: Wayne Bodkin