Honey Nugs

Kids love honey. That’s why parents love Honey Nugs.

For me, there’s a very clear colour palette that springs to mind when you’re talking about breakfast cereals, and that is: red, gold, black / blue and white. And possibly bits of orange and yellow. See Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, Sugar Puffs and Weetabix for details. Personally I never touch the stuff. I’m much more a (vg) bacon or sausage sandwich type. Swap the bread for toast and add beans if the night prior was particularly heavy.

Enough of my boring life. In this episode of Black Mirror, Rashida Jones has a blackout at the school where she teaches, as a tumour has obliterated a significant of her brain. The choices her husband Chris O’Dowd has are either 1. Let her die. 2. Fill the vacated space in her brain with synthetic tissue provided by Rivermind. He opts for the latter and everything is hunky dory. Until, that is, they discover that they’re only on a basic Rivermind plan (later rebadged as the ‘Common’ package) that includes adverts. If you’ve ever used Spotify (or YouTube without an ad blocker), you will get what this means. It all spirals when Rivermind end up fucking about with the different plans and effectively force the couple to upgrade, ending up with Chris having to perform demoralising stunts live on stream for cash (the site is called Dum Dummies but seems like a hark back to the Nathan Barley that features Dan Ashcroft gambling on a website called ‘Scum Vegas’, showcasing Russian peasants fighting each other for pittance). Honey Nugs are one of the products that is mentioned in the show during one of these ad breaks.

The obvious choices would be to go for either Rivermind or Dum Dummies themselves, but those logos do show up in the show, so is a bit of a cop out when so many other fictional brands appear verbally. Others being Thirst Trap lube, Silver Swans over 50s dating and, bizarrely, Nike shoes (though obviously those are real).

If you’re not a fan of spoilers, look away now. Ultimately, they both conclude that life isn’t worth living and he ends up suffocating her while she reads out another advert. He then kills himself live on stream.

A suitably harrowing start to the seventh series.

NB The Ditta logo is featured in the show, but in the following episode ‘Bête Noire‘. Would this be a call forward? The jury’s out. Also, the flower is lifted from the flag of Mississippi, the state in which Tupelo resides, fact fans.