Yup, same Rudi and the same old Cruiser. The first issue of New Writers'
Press house journal, The Lace Curtain, had a Trot attack on CCO'B,
predicting his rightward swing, seemingly incredible after his record in the
Congo. We later published work by his wife, Maire. I forgot about the former
when I read in NY with Maire a few years back, and referred to the journal.
Took me a while to figure why he gave me a basilisk glare. Decent man in his
way, still.

T

----------
>From: Robin Hamilton <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: and it goes without saying that Skanky Possum rocks
>Date: Fri, Sep 12, 2003, 4:52 pm
>

>> Robin,
>>
>> I've always found it odd that after Rudi was shot, and briefly 'went
>> missing', he turned up outside Dublin,
>
> Are we on the same wave on this, Trevor?  What I have on Rudi Deutsche is
> the public stuff -- gunned down in 67 and died in 83.  (Sorry, I can't
> source this.)
>
> Rudi was the Leader of the Pack till he got wasted, then it was Red Danny.
>
>> living as a guest in the home of
>> Conor Cruise O'Brien, a former liberal pin-up of Irish politics who was in
>> process of migrating rapidly to the right.
>
> HOWL!!!!  I REALLY have a different spin on this than you (or maybe I'm a
> sucker for left-liberals) -- if we're talking about the Cruiser, when?
> Shite, Katanga -- I got the worst-ever-unfair-mark for an essay I ever wrote
> from Eddie Morgan.
>
> Glasgow sixties, the essay was officially on James Bridie's /The Sleeping
> Clergyman/, only I twisted it to deal with /Armstrong's Last Goodnight/.
>
> Typical bloody Eddie tutorial (he might have been more conciliatory if he
> realised that a bit down the road I'd be the ONLY one writing him up in both
> the official and unofficial feschrifts).
>
> Anyways, after the obligatory ten minutes as to why I had a B-(-) for the
> fucking essay ...
>
> [... look, it wasn't god's gift to scholarship but bloody hell ... ]
>
> ... we got to the point.
>
> Ooof!!  Is anyone INTERESTED in this crap?  The Citz had just done
> /Armstrong's Last Goodnight/ --Arden rewriting the Cruiser's Katanga
> experience.  Only I was *supposed* to be writing this essay on Bridie's
> /Sleeping Clergyman/.
>
> Only Eddie was (an unacknowledged) Leninist, and I was 4thI Trotsky ...
>
> Funny -- the shouting match lasted fifty minutes, and I *still* left with a
> B(-)-
>
> Unfair, unkind.
>
> Robin
>
> {Oh, yeah -- the Information Which Daren't Speak It's Name -- thing was,
> every single Bridie play I'd read, I'd read in first editions signed "From
> Jim to Duncan" -- I was living across the road from Duncan McCrea, and he
> tried to educate me by passing on the plays (most of which he'd starred in).
> So by the time I went up The Hill ...
>
> But ...
>
> I was twenty -- information you don't use.
>
> Robin
>