Jamie Drew has a blog

The Lucky One is a Boring Romantic Drama – But a Pretty Decent Sequel to 'The Terminator'

He wastes no time in showing her picture around her home town asking who this strange woman is so that he can show up on her doorstep unannounced and lacking in a decent explanation, because how do you explain that you found this woman’s picture in the future and felt as though destiny brought it to him?

Yesterday I was escorted down to the lower levels of the Warner Bros. corporate offices in London, near Holborn, for a screening of what turned out to be The Lucky One, the new Nicholas Sparks thing starring Zac Efron as a man who may or may not be a Terminator but is probably just some guy suffering PTSD, which is less interesting.

On the poster for The Lucky One, there’s a quote from that staple gossip-rag, Heat magazine, that says: “ZAC EFRON HAS NEVER BEEN HOTTER!”

Which, while not actually a review, is technically accurate.

An accurate rendition of my face when Caroline said this. I don’t receive compliments well, so I have to express myself through the medium of terrible “art.”

Stray observations on the first promotional image from Red Dwarf X

I had the surprise opportunity to see Clock Opera (again) the other night, which meant dragging myself off the couch and shambling over to Scala to meet my housemate, who had paid for the ticket and added it to the bill that one day I will pay back I swear, and a couple of friends, who didn’t buy my ticket but are lovely nonetheless.

About halfway to the tube station, I found I had forgotten my glasses, but then I ended up stuck behind a row full of tall people so I couldn’t see anyway. This is how it goes at gigs. This is just one of the drawbacks of being a 5’4” halfling.

There are a few upsides. Once, in a bar below a theatre open exclusively to actors, I told people I “was in Lord of the Rings.” Nobody questioned it.

So I saw Clock Opera for the third time since last year, and I’ve watched Guy Connelly’s beard sprout and evolve into the glorious face-hedge it is today. The album came out on Monday to largely negative reviews, which confused me until I actually gave it a listen. They’re better live.

It’s still a good album, though. Here’s The Lost Buoys.

"The monetization model of online publishing — a legacy model that hasn’t changed since the golden age of newspapers — is breeding even more mediocre and questionable content. Because this model puts the advertiser, not the reader, first, we suffer the same atrocities a newspaper editor lamented in 1923 when he bemoaned the way in which the circulation manager had taken over the newspaper and eclipsed the editor. As long as the ad-supported pageview remains the main currency of funding writing online, we’ll continue getting slideshows about kittens, HuffPost-ified sensationalist headlines, one-page articles artificially split into five pages, and other such assaults on the reader. To have intelligent readers, we need intelligent writers, certainly, but also intelligent publishing. I hope to see this ecosystem evolve towards a meritocracy, where content gets published because it is good, and because readers find value in it and are willing to put a price on this value. Reading is voting for writing, and I hope to see our votes count for more than they currently do."

Maria Popova

I’ve been introducing Community to my housemate since he got me the first season DVD for Christmas. The collective thoughts of the house can be summed up thus:

1. Community is amazing.
2. Alison Brie is so attractive it’s actually a little bit ridiculous.

"IF YOU LIVE LONG ENOUGH YOU ARE GOING TO GET ALL SORTS OF DISEASES. ALZHEIMERS IS JUST WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET OLDER AND I AM PROBABLY GOING TO LIVE TOO LONG. I AM MADE OF MEAT AND THIS CITY IS A HUGE COSMIC BARBECUE."

I woke up from a much-needed nap and my notebook was lying open on top of my face. This little passage of sparkles was the last thing I wrote down — probably earlier today, after the two job interviews and not a wink of sleep in the last couple of days. I think between Fulham Broadway and Earl’s Court.

Normally, I’d just tear out the page and eat it before anyone got to see it, but this time I thought I’d share it with you, reader. Take it as a lesson. Close the laptop and back away very slowly. Spend some time with the people you love. Never, ever move to London. London is horrible. It is, according to my insomnia, a huge cosmic barbecue.

(Hey, Jamie, how’s Year One going?)

(Oh, y’know. It’s a rollercoaster. Apparently I went a little bit crazy. I think I had a panic attack on Oxford Street earlier today. But, thankfully, I stopped feeling things at about four in the morning, so looking back it’s hard to tell.)

(But you got to wear a suit, right?)

(Fuck yes I did.)

(Nice.)

"True wit should break a wise man’s heart. It should strike at the exact point of weakness and it should scar. It should rest on a pillar of truth and not on a gelatin base, and the truth is not so shameful that it cannot be recorded."

Dawn Powell (via semperidem)