the five-a-side lie

A shared, unspoken agreement between two people that a poor film should be abandoned before the credits.

A rare, low-conflict evening in which one partner willingly cedes control of the television without negotiation.

A viral joke format with an unusually short but explosively intense lifespan before total cultural extinction.

A thin, unconvincing denial of reality TV fandom immediately undone by encyclopaedic contestant knowledge.