‘The rat has almost completed its methodical colonisation of the world,’ the Observer declared on 7 March 1976. Furry pioneers had conquered everywhere from Pacific paradises to Alaskan rubbish dumps, but the world wasn’t entirely cool with it. Talking about rats, according to the writer, provoked ‘a reaction, usually a distinct pause, the sort that used to occur if you introduced sex into polite conversation’. Rats arouse ‘a silty cloud of memories and phobias’: sinister experiments, sinking ships and plague.
