Part one; part two; part two and a bit. Spoilers for the whole thing (and The Godfather); trigger warnings for rape and domestic violence.

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Why is rabies so fascinating?

I remember when I first saw Russell Brand's Ponderland, and he was talking about childhood, and how when he was a kid he was obsessed with quicksand and rabies. And I was like, me too! In fact, I suspect we had the same reference book.

It's less frightening for me because we don't have proper rabies in the UK. We do have European Bat Lyssavirus, which is from the same family and responds to the same immunisation, and has pretty much the same prognosis. But it's a lot less contagious and apparently much less common than bat rabies in, say, the US.