my hotel television keeps trying to sell me things

Working until late most days this week, plus evenings at a selection of Moroccan, Indian and Brazilian restaurants.

It wasn't until Thursday that I had time to flop in front of the Temporary Television That Has To Be Treated With Care.

That's because although it has a wide selection of channels, it doesn't very easily go past '5'. It's something to do with the remote control, I think, and I've tried pointing it from very close and pressing the buttons firmly, but it'll usually give me a sporting chance to get as far as ITV1 and on a couple occasions I even found Sky 1.

Otherwise, it flips to various sales menus. Would I like high-speed internet access? Maybe a recent movie? Something -er- salacious?

It doesn't tire of offering from around these selections, but it does mean I've been somewhat limited in what I can watch. I suppose I could phone downstairs to get it fixed, and it's probably just tired batteries (the telly's or maybe mine?)

Instead I've remembered that I loaded episode two of True Detective onto the iPad. That will do nicely for an evening's amusement.

I'm still only at the second episode, where there's various quotes from the mysterious 1895 Robert W. Chambers book 'King in Yellow' which is about a play that drives people mad. Chambers set this prismatic story in an unnerving future of 1920.

Considering the obvious tie-in to this story, the creepy book is a steal on Kindle as a freebie at the moment. If there was ever a real live time traveller (as well as Thomas Pynchon) then I'd plump for Chambers as a strong candidate. Oh, okay, and William Gibson. Adding to the fun, I see the Amazon book was transcribed by a community of volunteers to get it into Kindle format.

So, television problem solved. Watch the episode and then read the book. Starting with the macabre Repairer of Reputations.

...And maybe admire the mocked-up magazine cover art on Slate.