My household’s new year’s resolution has been to stop watching so much rubbish television. In our case, it was a surfeit of reality TV shows, most usually what we habitually refer to as “food porn”. With the plethora of high-quality series now available on streaming platforms, why watch Rick Stein eat his way around France for the third time?

But there’s evidence that “consolatory entertainment” – unchallenging, uncomplicated viewing – is bringing people together in lockdown. It’s the sort of television which is relatable and easily shareable when we get together on Zoom to chew the fat, promoting lighthearted arguments about who should have won Bake Off or whether Bill Bailey is a bit old to be dancing to Rapper’s Delight. At a time when cabin fever is turning social media platforms into vicious cage-fighting forums, being able to laugh together about the rubbish we’ve seen on the gogglebox is performing an important function for many people.

Of course, you could always turn the damn thing off and read a good book. This week we highlighted a little-known novella by E.M. Forster, The Machine Stops, which resonates now more than ever due to its depiction of a world where people live in isolation, relying entirely on an internet-like appliance for entertainment, commerce and communication. Read it and you’ll find the outside world looks a lot brighter.

Or how about James Joyce’s masterwork Ulysses? If, like me, you ground to a baffled halt in the first few chapters, you could try starting 100 pages or so into the book. Joyce’s style might make for hard work, but from chapter four his account of June 16 becomes far more accessible, writes our literary critic – and you are that much closer to the much-loved Molly Bloom’s afternoon of passion.

When you’re not gawping at the telly or immersed in a good book, take the time to catch up on some of the stories of the week. New research on the gruesome megalodon, for example, a prehistoric shark whose enormous babies ate their siblings in the womb. Or the mystery of Bolivia’s disappearing Lake Poopó. Or – in the wake of those paltry food parcels – the nutrients that hungry school children should be getting.

Meanwhile from our colleagues around the world, birds that sniff out potential mates that are genetically different, how China is controlling the narrative about the origins of COVID, and Donald Trump’s Twitter journey: from hero to zero.

Contact us here to have your event listed.

For sponsorship opportunities, email us here