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“... but now he’s thinking of taking acting lessons. Perhaps he had been inspired by the careers of Jimmy Boyle, John McVicar, ‘Dirty Den’ of EastEnders, and Paul Barber, one of the ‘Brothers McGregor’ who also spent some time inside, and who recently claimed in the Sun: ‘Jailed turned me into a ...”

“... Train-robber Biggs and murderer Boyle present in their testaments a challenge to our moral reflexes. Both authors have appalling records: South Londoner Biggs with countless petty interviews, conspiracy to commit biography, and now brazen autobiography executed in ruthlessly-priced hard-back, plus indecent exposure on a Sex Pistols waxing: Glaswegian Boyle with an audaciously publicised apologia here compounded in paperback, cold-blooded participation before the fact in a television film witnessed by millions of law-abiding citizens, and flagrant indulgence in the plastic arts (to wit, sculpture with a sharp instrument) under the very noses of the prison authorities ...”

“... corpsing into the camera, he’s enjoying himself so much. T2 Trainspotting does the trick Danny Boyle did with the London Olympics ceremony, reflecting its audience straight back on itself, only bigger and nicer and much, much better-looking, wrapping it in a shiny gift bag, tied up with a bow. The premise is that Renton is on his way back to Scotland from ...”

“... bad faith controlling his testament. Like other celebrated prisoners – Genet, Gilmore, Abbott, Jimmy Boyle, each in his own way – he conceives his destiny as that of martyr and saint: ‘It was Easter,’ he writes, describing a rooftop protest, ‘and I horrified many onlookers by stretching my arms over the cross on the church roof and hanging ...”

“... of why Lowland Scots, as different in pedigree as David Daiches, the film-maker Bill Douglas, Jimmy Boyle and Anne Smith, should be so determined to rake over and publicly display their childhoods (all more or less deprived childhoods, though in Daiches’ case less so from poverty than from an austerely Judaist upbringing). To take a topical ...”

“... books like Jim Phelan’s Jail Journey (1940); John McVicar’s McVicar by Himself (1974); Jimmy Boyle’s Sense of Freedom (1977). When Boyle set down his experience in a novel, Hero of the Underworld (1999), the central character was already out of prison and back on the streets. According to the ...”

“... on my Facebook Wall. Self-destructive thoughts when forced to admit they can’t. Like Susan Boyle, all one wants is to have one’s little life back. B., thank god, seems fine. Calls frequently from Cambridge on the Crackberry; thinks I’m making an insane fuss about moving five houses up the street. Full of kind spousal forbearance when I tell her we ...”

“... producers and strand editors to the controller and five commissioners. In the same period, James Boyle, Radio Four’s controller, had undertaken the dangerous procedure of restructuring his channel’s slots, which reduced the weekly 90-minute play to 60 minutes (at the same time moving it from Monday to Friday) and rationalised the daytime drama output in ...”

“... McIntyre’ and a group of young shop stewards from the Rosyth Dockyard, who ‘included Charlie Boyle, Helen Dowie, Jimmy Dyce, Charlie Logan, Margaret Logan, Bert Lumsden, George Manclark, Derek Stubbs, Peter Young and also Alex Falconer’). As this shows, they didn’t all have to be men, but usually they were. There ...”