Hitcher

The sat nav’s showing an accident coming up. Do you mind if I follow an alternate route it’s showing me? It’s actually quicker than the normal way.

I usually try and steer clear of *just* black and white if I can help it, mainly because I think it’s pretty base level, but I was kind of backed into a corner with this one. I’m sure I’m not serving up any major spoilers by revealing that the Hitcher app in the Black Mirror episode ‘Smithereens‘ is based on everyone’s favourite on-demand taxi service. As a side note, I can tell you that in this country (the United Kingdom, if you haven’t already worked that out) we’re getting bent over a barrel and pumped for all we’re worth. Apologies for the mental images. Two places I’ve been where it costs 10p to go a million miles: Cape Town and Orlando. Or whatever 10p is in ZAR and USD. Seriously, I was on a ride in Florida for 45 minutes and I thought I was going to have to remortgage the house. It cost $12.

Anyway, Andrew Scott sheds his vicar outfit and kidnaps a social media intern and threatens to blow his head off if he doesn’t speak to the head of the corporation. Who is basically IRL uber-fuckwit Jack Dorsey, ex-owner of Twitter. The less said about the current one the better, IMO. There’s a sub-plot involving a woman he knobs after attending a grief counselling session who’s attempting to access her dead daughter’s ‘Persona’ account but only gets three password guesses a day. The logos for both Persona (this world’s version of Facebook) and Smithereens are represented very highly in a visual sense throughout the programme, so it would be a huge cop out to feature those, so you may well have to look elsewhere if you want them. I dare say they exist.

So black and white, Uber-style font and a cheeky little thumbs up icon. If you’re too young to remember hitchhiking, it was a celebrated cause of death to many an American teenager in the 1970s and I’m old enough to have done it successfully in my own lifetime. Which either means I’m old as fuck or insane. A little from column A and a little from column B. Anyway, you walk by the side of the road and stick your thumb out until a stranger offers you a lift.

I would advise you to not attempt it in this day and age, though. Hot priests are not going to abduct you. Obese, sweating lorry drivers from Ipswich are. Remain vigilant.