I'm sorry I haven't been blogging. I suppose I feel a little uneasy at repeating myself. Life still goes on, though less dramatically than before.

For the last ten days I've been staying at a friend's squat in New Cross. It's a big old house, with hot water, a decent kitchen and bathroom, and a roof terrace; but, as is standard, there's almost no furniture. I'm a guest rather than a member of the group, since I'm not there much, and had no hand in setting it up.
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luckyjimm

Last month, on being introduced to a small, very wealthy American poker publisher, I proposed expanding my Isildur1 blog into a novel. Then I suggested a journalistic account of the Isildur1 story. But it soon became clear they wanted what they called my "autobiography".

Over the next few weeks I drafted and redrafted a chapter plan. I figured out how to use my trip to Sweden in search of Viktor Blom as a way into my own story.

I'd dropped out of my PhD...

luckyjimm

The Oubliette are now rather appropriately based in a dungeon-like building in Southwark. I was shocked to hear it's been empty since 1969. I'm told there's a dispute between the family who own it, and the council who compulsorily purchased some of the land it's on. The dispute, like the building, passes down through the generations.

The group have been there for seven weeks but, newly returned to London, I visited them for the first time last night. As I went to lock up my...

luckyjimm

I was at the Red Room in Mayfair to report on the PartyPoker Big Game IV. I'd just seen Roland de Wolfe play a £40k pot against Phil Laak. The chips went in on the turn and they agreed to run the river four times. Roland de Wolfe won all four times.

The man to my left told me running the cards several times doesn't make mathematical sense because it reduces your expected winnings. I nodded in quick agreement as he explained in unsolicited detail.

He told me he was...

luckyjimm

Last night outside the Red Room I saw a well-known UK pro get into a taxi with two girls in dresses and heels. The three of them had spent the night drinking cocktails, the pro sitting comfortably in the middle. He knows me and we spoke a while, but he didn't introduce me to the girls. They were both English, and one was called Kitty.

As I unlocked my bike I wondered where their taxi was going. Cycling back to the south London terrace where my friends are briefly living, I envied...

luckyjimm