@asimong Hi Simon. Tenacity and patience are what you need, I think ;-)
Follow a few folks who seem to talk sense, and your Home feed should be interesting and half-relevant, including their boosted toots (huh?).
Apply language filters in your <Settings> - then at least you can understand what passes by in the Federated timeline!
Experiment with the positioning of the panels that you can pin and move in the Mastodon web interface, to keep the most interesting in view.
Enjoy