It was a bad day for Russia today in 1991 when Mikhail Gorbachev resigned. The architect of perestroika and glasnost, he handled the collapse of the USSR with flair and skill. He was replaced by a drunk, Boris Yeltsin.
In other news ...
Ralph Richardson was born today in 1902. One of the best known classical actors of his generation, he excelled in Shakespearean roles but also took to films like a duck to water. I stand to be corrected, but I think he was the only actor to play William Gladstone in the history of the cinema. He could also be seen roaring around the Home Counties on a powerful motorbike when in his seventies. To our minds (the collective known as the Carpenter-Maxwells, that is) his best cinema moment was as the Supreme Being in Time Bandits. But that's us for you.
