I blame the movies, of course, for colouring my expectations. When I heard about Boris Becker’s forthcoming prison memoir, Inside, and especially when the Daily Mail described it as “gut-wrenching and utterly haunting”, I couldn’t help but imagine the toughest scenes from prison classics including Midnight Express, Papillon, Bronson, Escape from Alcatraz, and Brawl in Cell Block 99. That last movie is a truly terrifying litany of crushed skulls, broken necks, stabbings and even one full decapitation. The Becker book, it transpires, and based only on the huge chunks serialised so far, seems more, well, Paddington 2 dance finale.

His incarceration story begins, eerily enough, with the screams of an inmate during Becker’s first night in HM Prison Wandsworth, in April 2022. The Wimbledon tennis player had been sent there for offences committed under the Insolvency Act (including removing money from his bankruptcy estate without permission), which was the result, he says, with just a tiny hint of self-serving victimhood, “of letting others run my finances”.

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His tone too for this Wandsworth section is oddly prim and unemotional, and hardly gut-wrenching. He talks about his incredible capacity to thrive under pressure and be resilient (of course he does!), and describes balking at a foul-mouthed female prison guard who uses “language ripe for a Centre Court code violation”. Yes, Boris, you’re in prison, not Downton Abbey.

After six weeks in Wandsworth Becker is transferred to HM Prison Huntercombe in Oxfordshire, and this is where it gets really weird. His slammer experience slowly evolves into a feelgood melodrama with Becker at the mesmerising centre, acting as a lightning rod for the hopes and dreams of all the hardened drug dealers and murderers round him. There’s a villain, of course, in the form of a nasty screw who doesn’t actually crush Becker’s skull like they do in the movies, but instead, well, messes with his dinner schedule so that Becker only has the less appetising meal options from which to choose. Again, not exactly Papillon, and not utterly haunting either.

Becker, thankfully, is made of stern stuff (of course he is!) and he’s soon befriended by a giant Lithuanian drug dealer and paedophile-hater whom he nicknames, adorably, Baby Hulk. When Baby Hulk learnt that a paedophile had been transferred to Huntercombe he marched straight into the new arrival’s cell and “borderline killed him”. Becker says that he doesn’t approve of anyone being borderline killed, but he certainly seems to enjoy the protection he gets from this new association. “No one was ever going to touch Baby Hulk, or his friends,” he writes, without a hint of irony.

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The Boris boy squad expands to include another couple of drug dealers and an Albanian double-murderer, all of whom are slowly infected with Becker’s great guy energy and are hugely impressed when his wife, Lilian, features on the Wimbledon TV coverage. “F***, you’ve got a hot chick!” they say. “How did you do it?” Becker replies, “Hidden talents, my friends, hidden talents.” Legend.

This section ends with a fantastical and hugely cinematic “O captain my captain!” moment, where the entire prison seems to be watching the 2022 Wimbledon finale and cheering on the victory of Becker’s former charge Novak Djokovic. The prisoners bang their cells with “cups, cutlery, chairs and belts” in communal ecstasy, while Becker rises to his feet, personally victorious, weeping with delight and finally knowing that “in my mind I was flying”.

Hmm. It reminds me of the movies again. Not the prison movies, but a 2023 documentary by the Oscar winner Alex Gibney. It’s a brilliant film called Boom! Boom! The World vs. Boris Becker, and in it Gibney argues that Becker is, above all else, the consummate storyteller. He’s so good, in fact, that by the end of the film Gibney is forced to ponder the provocative question “Are his stories too good to be true?” So. Er. Well. Read any interesting books lately?

No! Robbie Williams, not here

Yes, we know, the Cotswolds is amazing, darling, everybody wants to move here, sweetie, and celebrity this and famers’ market that and fabulous restaurant the other! But surely we’re reaching saturation point now that even Robbie Williams is reportedly house-hunting here too? I’m tempted to organise an anti-celebrity-migrants march along the M4 while holding a banner that reads, “No More Celebs! We’re Full! Go Back to London! No, really! Sod off!”

It’s getting so ridiculous that I can’t even enjoy a quiet dip in my local lake without encountering a plethora of red carpet exiles including the Gladiator II star Paul Mescal, who arrived with his actor buddies Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley and Mescal’s partner, the singer Gracie Abrams. All lovely people, no doubt, but their presence also means that a gaggle of teenage girls then gather expectantly round the road to the lake and, more importantly, over time there’s a noticeable increase, to recent insane heights, in the local price of everything.

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From property down to chocolate croissants, everything here is suddenly priced as if catering only for the kind of people who have teams of assistants shoving mushroom-infused shakes and organic kale smoothies into their faces at all hours of the day. It’s getting so bad that I now look forward to going into London during the week just so I can buy cheaper coffee.

Still, we all love Robbie. And it could be worse. It’s not as if someone really major, like, y’know, Beyoncé and Jay-Z are reportedly house-hunting here too. Oh? They are? Great. So that’s coffee off the menu for me, for ever. Brilliant. Now, where did I put that banner?