Remote Control

So-called "entertainment" is seldom actually entertaining these days, and only the victim of an evaporated intellect could possibly be entertained by television, the ne plus ultra of anaesthesiological technology. Television is merely a method of sleeping without going to sleep, of switching on to switch off. Indeed, a skilled surgeon could probably perform complex amputations while his patients gaped at Mad Men or The Simpsons - "pass the chips and dip, please Nurse" - although such operations would undoubtedly involve excruciating pain during commercial breaks.
And so it disturbs me that some of these network television signals still travel through the ether, meaning that invisible and invasive squadrons of soap opera and game show particles are constantly locked in an aerial dogfight with my brain, even while I am trying to read or write. I am sure this relentless bombardment of moronic transmissions is why I mysteriously seem to know so much trivia about TV programs I have never seen, and why I used to think that Perry Mason was a character in Kafka's The Trial.