"It's not cinéma vérité, it's film noir!"

Not for the first time tonight, I pondered how I can get onto Newsnight Review on BBC2. One of the panellists this week was an elegant American writer and academic, Sarah Churchwell, (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/review/3542918.stm) who, whilst discussing the new Paul Verhoeven film, 'Black Book', uttered the memorable rejoinder which forms the title of this blog. This is the type of woman I'd like to meet. We'd become instantly entwined in an intense and tumultuous relationship, a drama which would unfold upon the canvas of numerous open-air cafes in various European cities, our conversation laced with politics and philosophy and passion.

But first, I need to get onto Newsnight Review. One possible route is to become an NME journalist for 10 years or so, and then to migrate onto television as a 'pithy opinion dispenser'. Whilst I would enjoy ripping into Coldplay albums, this would be something of a long campaign. Another possible route is to become a modern poet, in the style of Tom Paulin or Ekow Eshun. I quite liked Mr Paulin's style of withering criticism ("I've never seen anything so completely abysmal, and awful, and reprehensible, and downright rotten in my entire life!"). I reckon I need to get myself to some of those literary parties.

Perhaps I should make a show, in Dave Gorman style, about my attempts to get onto Newsnight Review. If this show were to be reviewed on Newsnight Review, that would indeed be uber-ironic.