He may have been, but how can a broken old man, gaunt and obviously failing, a foreigner, sustain the image? He can't.That is why Biggs's pitch has changed Whereas once he sought admiration, now he desires pity. Let me be looked after in a prison hospital and then be given early release on compassionate grounds That is what he obviously wants. I am not really a criminal, he argues, I am an ex-crook; making a distinction where none exists.I assume he is counting on British compassion. He believes he earns brownie points by giving himself up; it's a fair cop and all that I am old. Time for a bit of magnanimity on the part of the authorities Be human for once.

Let me have a last glass of beer with old friends in a Margate pub. I won't cause any more trouble.I am afraid I am a bit too puritanical to be moved by this. I come from a tight tradition that finds nothing admirable whatever in the Biggs' story even though I can understand why many people find it appealing. When his cheeky, smiling face continued to appear in the newspapers, I always turned the page quickly. My hope has been to see him rearrested, preferably on the dance floor of a nightclub in Rio I am not genetically programmed to be sympathetic to Biggs He's not my type. I can't find any charm in the story or enjoy the joke.If only the Foreign Office had declined to provide him with the passport that allows him to fly into Heathrow That would have been the fittest punishment.

Instead I hope that, on this occasion at least, the authorities will behave in their best stiff-necked, unbending and myopic ways. Let their bureaucratic, nit-picking, unfeeling sentiments be unrestrained. May all their curmudgeonly habits at last serve a good purpose. May they lock him up in the very jail from which he escaped and keep him safely there until he has served his full sentence.auss globalnet.co.uk More from Andreas Whittam Smith. When I heard that the May Day protesters had been forced to stay for hours penned up in Oxford Circus and Oxford Street, I felt that this was a punishment too severe for any crime. When I heard that the May Day protesters had been forced to stay for hours penned up in Oxford Circus and Oxford Street, I felt that this was a punishment too severe for any crime Especially as they hadn't even committed a crime.

Of all the places you wouldn't want to be forced to spend time in in London, Oxford Street is high up on the list, higher even than Wormwood Scrubs or the House of Commons. Indeed, when I first heard about the May Day demonstration, I had the vague impression to begin with that it was actually some kind of mass protest against the existence of Oxford Street That was when I had most sympathy with the demo. Oxford Street is the street in London that most needs to be protested against.In my life in London I often had to go along Oxford Street by bus, taxi and bicycle, and on foot, and my heart never failed to sink as I started the dreary journey, and never failed to lift as I moved on somewhere else.Oxford Street seemed to contain so many of the most tedious and humdrum shops in London, the most bloated department stores, the naffest jeans and leather shops, the most predictable shoe shops, the least exciting snack bars and burger joints, and the nastiest tourist souvenir shops. It still does, as far as I can make out.It also attracts the sort of people who might go to that kind of shop ­ the crowds battling their way along Oxford Street always have a dully determined look on their face, as if they are grimly programmed to go and buy that horrible coat or that revolting aftershave, but not to enjoy the process at all.Of course there are some acceptable shops in Oxford Street ­ I bought some knives and forks from John Lewis once, and never regretted it at all ­ but I can't remember ever finding a shop in the whole of Oxford Street which felt exciting enough to want to go back to. Now, there are shops near Oxford Street which I still go back to even after moving out of London.In Great Marlborough Street, for instance, there is Schott's, the printed music shop, where I have spent hours of my life browsing through piano music I wished I could play, and occasionally bought under the mistaken impression that I could learn to play it.