To 'beat the rat'?

Hello everyone,

I was watching the film "About a boy" the other day and I distinctly heard
Hugh Grant say "I think we beat the rat there, mate." This is obviously an
idiom - one on which my dictionaries are suspiciously silent, and so is
[1].

A search in Google (UK only, [2]) yields 36 results but almost all of them
read 'beat the rat race'. Now, I know what a rat race is, so it seems
pretty straight forward what 'to beat the rat race' means - something like
'not taking part in the competition for success etc. any more'. But I can't
really figure out what Hugh Grant meant.

Any help greatly appreciated.

TIA and greetings from southern Germany,
Frido


[1] http://tinyurl.com/qdtxp
[2] http://tinyurl.com/p4xq6
.