Today, Radio 4

Brendan O’Connor, RTÉ Radio 1

The great punk poet John Cooper Clarke – anyone who rhymes Ford Cortina with vacuum cleaner gets my vote – featured on the Today programme.

He confessed that he didn’t use a computer nor did he have a mobile phone. “I’m in the modern world but not of the modern world,” he said.

It’s not that he’s a luddite, he said, he knows how great computers are.

“If you gave me a computer you would find me seven days later, dead under a pile of pizza boxes… It’s either a computer or a career.” He had a point.

It’s unusual to begin an interview with the question: “When did you get out of prison?”

RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor was chatting to Pat Sheedy, a gambling addict.

Sheedy has written a book: A Hundred to One: 100 Convictions. 1 Million Euro. the True Story of a Compulsive Gambler.

What O’Connor does is gently probe and give his interviewee time.

Sheedy said it started when he first walked into a bookie’s – a small, pokey room with a gang of men smoking cigarettes. He felt that he just fitted.

“They never judged me or slagged me… they spoke to me on their level, I liked that.”

He went in to place a bet for his dad and even then he was scamming. It was meant to be a 30p bet, but he made it for 10p.

Unfortunately, his dad won and he had to answer for the shortfall.

The high he got at 15 years old when he won an accumulator bet – they hoisted him on their shoulders, there were roars and shouts and screams – hooked him.

Sheedy is candid about what he took, stealing a cheque out of the back of a neighbour’s cheque book because it would take ages for them to find out.

The high he got at 15 years old when he won an accumulator bet – they hoisted him on their shoulders, there were roars and shouts and screams – hooked him

He stole a friend’s bank card while he slept, going to the ATM, taking the cash and gambling it.

“You’re burning bridges, left, right and centre,” said O’Connor.

He confessed he used his parents to “a despicable degree”.

“If I had a daughter who brought home somebody like me, I’d probably be telling her to get rid of him. That’s the reality,” he said. No punches were pulled.