The news might be single-handedly trying to bring about an environmental catastrophe, which it will then report on. Super injunctions are interesting legal weapons really, they don't just gag the press, they gag them from mentioning the existence of the gag. Sport belongs in a news bulletin about as much as a mummified cat's head belongs in a Caesar salad. Combine the "mounting pressure" with the "growing cause" and you've got yourself a "media whirlwind" which you can also refer to.

I pitched Jay Hunt the opening scene (prime minister, middle of the night, he's woken up...). She paused, and then she laughed. She was very intrigued and all that, and then she said, "Does it have to be a pig?" So we went through various options: Could it be a supermarket frozen chicken? A giant wheel of cheese? A pig seemed just the right level of absurd, but then when he walks in and there's actually a pig there, it's awful.

As long as we've still got crazy "what if" ideas, we can continue [Black Mirror]. It's outpacing reality that's probably the challenge.

I could worry that I'm going to bleed to death, you know, from cutting my finger on a sandwich packet, you know, if I sort of open a sandwich.

In comedy writing, a sitcom plot is basically the same thing: What's the worst thing that could happen? But you're playing it for comic effect. It's a similar muscle being used with Black Mirror.

Technology is a global thing and wherever you go, people are prodding the same devices and worrying in the same way and have had their lives slightly altered in the same way.

I was more aware initially of shows like Tales of the Unexpected. And the BBC used to put on a lot of one-off, bizarre television plays.