"There has been so much rubbish written up in the papers over the years"
About this Quote
Coming from Ronald Biggs, the Great Train Robbery fugitive who spent decades as both criminal and tabloid character, the line reads like a sly negotiation with fame. Biggs didn’t merely endure media attention; he lived off the afterimage of notoriety, selling interviews, cultivating a wink-wink persona, and treating the public like an audience. Calling it “rubbish” lets him keep the benefits of celebrity while shrugging off its costs. It’s reputational jiu-jitsu: the more lurid the stories, the easier it is to imply the whole narrative is contaminated.
The subtext is also a rebuke to moral clarity. Biggs suggests that public memory is built from clippings and exaggerations, not consequences. If the papers are rubbish, then outrage is just another headline cycle. The line’s power is its banality: no grand confession, no outrage, just a weary brush-off that positions him as the long-suffering subject of other people’s stories, rather than the author of his own.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Biggs, Ronald. (2026, January 16). There has been so much rubbish written up in the papers over the years. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-has-been-so-much-rubbish-written-up-in-the-129201/
Chicago Style
Biggs, Ronald. "There has been so much rubbish written up in the papers over the years." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-has-been-so-much-rubbish-written-up-in-the-129201/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"There has been so much rubbish written up in the papers over the years." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/there-has-been-so-much-rubbish-written-up-in-the-129201/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.






