John did not write about politics to the exclusion of all else. In 2002 he wrote a piece called ‘Poker in the Strand’ specially for this book, about his life as a neophyte gambler in sixties London (he was a dab hand at poker, and earned a fair bit of money from it).The place he played was an illegal gambling den called the En Passant, in the Strand. Here is just a taste of it: “The En Passant was a poker club, hiding behind the very tiniest fig leaf of a chess club. Actually, this is not quite true. It was really a poker game, not a club. There was nothing you could join, no membership fee or list, no records of any kind, no entrance fee, no reception or receptionist, no doormen, no security – though the people who went there, some of them at least, were more than capable of dealing with any trouble that might present itself and capable, if they chose, of creating more trouble than any doorman or security could handle. There was just a game of poker, occasionally two games – seven or eight men sitting round a table playing cards permanently…in its heyday the poker game at the En Passant ran continuously 24 hours round the clock, one endless game of cards without beginning or end…The small gangster types all had Runyonesque nicknames: Johnny the Builder, Chills Tony, Little Art, Jumbo, Scouse Billy, Paddy George, Chrissy Doobie, Brian the Burglar and such like…Johnny the Builder was a small wiry man, middle aged going on old, with a harsh rasping voice that testified to chain smoking and could hardly utter a sentence without several expletives. “Fucking cards. I ain’t seen a fucking pair since bloody eight o’clock…”
It may be out of print by now but if you can get hold of a copy it’s a great read. Try Bookmarks first.