Janina Matthewson

2026

About nine and a half years ago, amid all the jokes about how awful 2016 was, in the middle of a Within the Wires meeting, Jeffrey said Meg says this will be the best year for ages. I've seen a lot of people talking about their terrible 2025.

God Rest Ye

Look, I love Christmas. I'm deeply selfish about it. This is something I inherited from my family when we moved to a city in which none of our grandparents or aunts or uncles or cousins lived. There were too many of us for seeing our extended family to

Collected Ideas for Saving Cinema, An Ongoing Discussion Between Me and Jamie Drew

* Fewer ads. Obviously fewer ads and also the ads should only be allowed to be shown before the trailers. Like, you get a couple of ads, then you get trailers, which are more fun, then the movie. It used to be this way. It could be this way again. * Also,

I will now allow Christmas to begin

Hello, good evening, it is Saturday the 6th of December, I have had a busy week, I'm sitting alone on my couch with a pour of wine, and I am willing to allow the festive season to begin. In celebration of this momentous occasion I have put on

It's my birthday I would like to stop being made to feel insane

I believe in simple things. I believe you shouldn't have to be in crippling discomfort when you fly even if you can't afford fancy fares. I believe that you shouldn't be expected to spend all your time working a job that provides no value

There's no escaping human connection

In The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis describes hell as an endlessly expanding, empty city. The people who live there are forever trying to get further away from each other, moving further outwards in an effort to find a comfortable isolation. It's a place where you can have

The horrors

On hope

A few years ago, for History is Sexy, we had a question come in about musicals and revolutions. Naturally the reasons we come back to stories about revolutions, musical or otherwise, are myriad and varied and if you want a more comprehensive look you can listen to the episode but

Complaints

Ok, so we all hate tropes, is it?

I don't know why people are talking about this really. I don't even really know how much they are talking about it, but I've seen it float across my feed a few times over the last few days, and many more over the last

Paid-members only

Weird Shit

What weird shit have you watched recently: spooky season edition

Full disclosure this is going to be a combination of weird shit I have watched recently and weird shit I think you should watch this spooky season, why not, I contain multitudes. Now, I am not a big horror person but I do enjoy some horror or horror adjacent offerings.

A farewell

The first episode of the tenth and final season of Within the Wires is out today. I have been working on this show for ten years, which makes absolutely no sense. I cannot imagine working on something for so long, even as I sit here now having done it. It&

Paid-members only

Art

Art vs. Entertainment or; how to be a film guy

Look, I wasn't going to write a newsletter today. I was going to be a few days late, which, given my intention is to be a week ahead, is already very late. But then my friend Marie's newsletter came out and it made have thoughts. Or,

Paid-members only

The horrors

We have become slaves to the idea of sounding convincing

I have a real grudge against the Enlightenment. Sure, the scholars of the Enlightenment pushed Western society towards democracy, moved us into a theoretically more egalitarian future, but they also ruined everything for everyone forever. The Enlightenment convinced us all that reasoned debate was the only thing that mattered and

Art Featured

Taskmaster task outfits: ranked (Series 20 Update)

The following is the definitive ranking of Taskmaster task outfits. I placed each outfit on a whim and stand by absolutely none of it, so do not come at me, I will fold immediately. I'll be honest, I thought this was going to be a quick and easy

Paid-members only

Politics

Graham Linehan and online harassment: a timeline

Were you on twitter during Gamergate? God, what a time. If you weren't extremely online circa 2015 (brag) let me explain (no, there is too much; let me sum up): in the latter half of 2014 a bunch of the internet's discontented men launched a massive

Paid-members only

Caroline Bingley: Matchmaker

I don't think Fitzwilliam Darcy would have fallen in love with Elizabeth Bennett if it wasn't for Caroline Bingley. So there. Have you heard the pop-psychology story about Ben Franklin and the rare book? Franklin argued that people will be more inclined to like you if

Paid-members only

AI

Friends fear she has more to say about AI

Once again a thing is going around on Bluesky where someone is defending the use of AI to make art, and there's something in there that's stood out to me. The person describes the process of learning to paint as hazing. So what the fuck is

Paid-members only

Ok, look, I'm going to talk about Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez

Obviously it is obscene to be alive right now. Obscene to be writing a newsletter at all, but then it also feels obscene to be sitting safely in my flat with a cup of coffee and a snack. A normal life feels obscene right now but we've got

Paid-members only

Men, hug your bros. Grasp them by the shoulders, look deep into their eyes and tell them you cherish their friendship. For the good of us all.

We regret to inform you that there has been a discourse. Ian Dunt is worried about men getting laid. He's worried that all the advice for men on getting laid comes from right wing dipshits like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, and that the left doesn't

Paid-members only

Complaints

We continue to barely function

Samuel Johnson (of the dictionary) spent a lot of his life trying to avoid debtor's prison. He's one of the most highly regarded English writers in history but while he lived and worked he struggled to survive. Such is life. What he would do to avoid

Paid-members only

Art

A Dichotomy of Bops, Bangers, and Jams

I've been trying to explore, musically, this week. I do this thing – I don't know if you've heard of this – where I tend to only listen to things I already know, and I'm trying to be better at keeping myself abreast of

Paid-members only

Advice

Unfortunately it's time to take a lesson from: Improv comedy

I'm not going to talk to you about yes and, don't worry, it's not that bad. I used to be an actor. I'm what they call professionally trained. This just means I spend several years of my life and several thousands of

Art

Jamie and Janina’s Universal Film Drinking Game

I had originally posted a version of this on Medium, but it occurs to me that I used to sign in to Medium with my twitter account and I've deleted my twitter account, obviously, so I thought I put it here because it's very good. Jamie

Paid-members only

AI

Once again, we regret to inform you, it is AI

This week in death to AI some judge in some case ruled that AI companies using our books without permission qualifies as fair use because it's transformative, and not distinct from authors being influenced by other books themselves. The judge did also say that AI companies pirating books

What the fuck is going on

A non-exhaustive list of what the fuck is going on. What the fuck is going on is that Trump bombed Iran. What the fuck is going on is that this hero successfully delivered food to someone trapped on a stuck train. 0:00 /0:49 1× What the fuck is

Paid-members only

Complaints

We need at least some rich people to agree to being eaten

Labour are trying to court Reform voters. The BBC is trying to appeal to Reform viewers. We're all sick of it. There is one common cause, I think, between a lot of us on the left, and many voters on the right and it is this: life fucking