choosing DISTRACTION

Pandemic lockdowns, mass unemployment, murder hornets… now that we’re living in an episode of Black Mirror, is it any wonder we’re cocooning in our homes, watching endless repeats of low-stakes ’90s sitcoms and baking banana bread? Now’s the time for some well-deployed mindlessness.

- LIESL ROBERTSON

We’re in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, so obviously there are serious issues to discuss.

Which TikTok dances get the most likes? Should you put choc chips in your banana bread? And did Carole Baskin really kill her husband?

If you have no idea what I am talking about on that last one, kudos to you. I wish I could go back to a simpler time when the name Joe Exotic meant nothing to me. For a while there, Tiger King was the most-watched show on Netflix; and DStv launched a channel dedicated solely to Tom Cruise movies. To my mind, there are now clearer signs that we are living in the end times.

With streaming, we have endless options at our fingertips. Now is the time to watch the classics. Confession time: I have never seen The Wire. I have never seen Shawshank Redemption (pause for collective gasp). I have never seen Casablanca or Gone With the Wind or The Godfather(s). (Although I can quote lines from all of them, for what it’s worth.) And yet, here I am, rewatching all nine seasons of The Office for what must be the millionth time. That Jim. Such a prankster. Just one more, then I’ll go to bed.

For years,