[The rumor that David Cameron maybe once did this unspeakable thing with a pig's head] it was freakish and weird. It seemed such a coincidence that I couldn't quite process it. And then, as it sank in, I genuinely had the thought, "Am I living in a Truman Show sort of VR simulation designed to send me insane?"

I tried to be all intellectual and erudite and with others I'd just swear and curse and be an idiot. And suddenly, when they're all in one space, I don't know who I am.

If technology is a drug – and it does feel like a drug – then what, precisely, are the side-effects?

Technology isn't the villain and the people aren't often really the villain so much as they're weak.

I actually had that conversation with [Channel 4 Chief Creative Officer] Jay Hunt. We were at a bit of a crisis point. I'd written a totally different script - about war, basically - that got rejected at the last minute for various reasons. The whole of the series was in doubt. I said, "Well, there is one other idea ["National Anthem"]."

Don't accuse anyone with the temerity to question your sad supernatural fantasies of having a 'closed mind' or being 'blind to possibilities'. A closed mind asks no questions, unthinkingly accepting that which it wants to believe. The blindness is all yours.

Overall, looking at the stories [Black Mirror], almost every story we've ever done is concerned with authenticity or reality in some way.