Time & Perspective Quote by Ronald Biggs

Biggs doesn’t rebut the absurdity of the claim; he negotiates its price. The joke is structured like a press correction, but the punchline is that he’s only offended by the lowballing. It’s a con artist’s instinct applied to celebrity mythmaking: if the papers are going to turn his fugitive life into soft porn arithmetic, at least let the numbers reflect a “proper” legend.

The intent is twofold. On the surface, he’s doing charming damage control, swatting away tabloid gossip with a wink. Underneath, he’s laundering criminal notoriety into a marketable persona. “On the run” is supposed to be fear, deprivation, isolation; Biggs flips it into a long tour, a lifestyle brand with romantic receipts. The line turns flight from justice into proof of virility and social capital. It’s not confession, it’s conversion: infamy into currency.

The subtext also exposes the mechanics of tabloids. They trade in quantity because quantity reads like evidence. Biggs understands that and plays along, accepting the frame (girlfriends as scoreboard) while outbidding the reporter’s imagination. His self-mockery isn’t humility; it’s control. He can’t rewrite his rap sheet, but he can steer the story toward a comic persona where he’s less thief than rogue, less dangerous than naughty.

Context matters: Biggs became a celebrity fugitive after the Great Train Robbery, living for decades as a media character as much as a man. This quip is the sound of a criminal case dissolving into entertainment, where the most effective getaway vehicle is a good line.