In this alternate universe, Gil falls for Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a kind of all-purpose muse to the assembled artists, who is restless with her own time and is in turn obsessed with another, past golden age, La Belle Epoque. Cue further time travel. The point being gently made seems to be that ‘twas ever thus, that we have always harked back, and that we should look around and see the good in our own era and in our own lives. It's a reassuring notion, and one wants to be convinced, but it's obscured by Allen's own rose-tinted view of Europe, one typical of East and West Coast liberal aspiring intellectuals who look towards the old world with a sycophancy their compatriots long ago abandoned. Besides, the fact is that very little of creative interest does indeed come out of Paris now. It is not the city of even a decade ago; only the hopelessly naive or ignorant would beat a path to the Latin Quarter in the hope of finding fame as an artist. Even the chic Chanel-clad women are extinct.

Despite this, Midnight in Paris is a beguiling film, occasionally funny, always light and happily bereft of the kvetching and rancour of some of Allen's recent efforts. It is also amazing, frankly, that he gets finance for a project such as this, which assumes its audience not only knows who Gertrude Stein, Man Ray and Dalí are, but that somebody such as Gil would be fascinated by them, and that there was humour to be had in meeting them in a time warp. We should be thankful for that, I suppose; but if this is not in itself evidence of real cultural decline, then I don't know what is. 

The Seventies are nobody's idea of a golden age, but watching the masterful new screen adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which takes place in the early years of that brown decade, a kind of nostalgia crept up on me for the London of my youth, before it became the world's largest arrivals and departures lounge: pokey, dowdy, with a lingering Dickensian flavour. Certainly spycatcher George Smiley seems to have emerged organically from its damp walls. I have not read the novel, and the TV adaptation passed me by, so not only was it utterly absorbing, but there was genuine suspense to be had in guessing the mole at the top of MI5. The revelation, when it comes, is relatively muted — nobody falls out of a cupboard clasping a copy of Das Kapital. It's the getting there that is the pleasure. The performances range from excellent (Colin Firth) to overripe (Tom Hardy), with Gary Oldman as Smiley hovering somewhere in the middle, gliding over much of the action like a regretful, mournful ghost. 

Brilliantly structured and atmospheric, it took me into its grey, intense, thoughtful universe completely. When I left, the world outside seemed flash, crass and empty as hell.