Sad news that I’ve only just learnt.
It’s hard to believe she was only two years younger than the actress who played Hyacinth (Patricia Routledge) in Keeping Up Appearances.
She always appeared/played the part so much younger.
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Wow. Gone far too young. So many of our female singers checking out right now. At least she was able to be at home.
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I love her songs “Escaping” and “Boy in the moon”.
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What? Can’t be.
Very good LIVE singer.
Beautiful lady.
Sad news, 57 way too young.
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And was able to compliment Darryl Braithwaite’s vocals on The Horses quite brilliantly.
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I think given his involvement in the fall of the USSR he qualifies as a celebrity, not just a politician.
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Not the Russian leader I was hoping to find in this thread…
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If you ever go to Reykjavík, there is a reasonably modest timber framed house that was once the French Embassy just by the bay. They say the fall of the USSR started inside there when Gorbachev met Reagan in 1986 to discuss their nuclear arsenals. How Gorbachev got it done without being killed is amazing really. He never got the credit he deserved.
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Absolutely agree, a bit like Fred de Klerk in South Africa.
Visited the Soviet Union a number of times and never thought that wall would ever come down, and that the people even wanted it. I lived in Jo-Burg for six months during the early 1980s and never in a million years did I think the White Afrikaans would ever give up without a massive blood-bath.
I could also add Corazon Aquino, as I also visited Manila at the height of the Marcos reign of terror, and never saw so many police and army in a main city in my life, and I guess I should not leave out Lech Wałęsa who took Poland to democracy, though when I first visited Poland in 1975, the Polish people I met all believed that they would rid themselves of the Soviet rule one day.
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I wonder what Lech Walesa thinks about how far to the right Poland has drifted since he was the revolution’s figurehead?
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Lech Walesa was pretty far right even back then. I’d suggest he would be comfortable with it.
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Like Hungary has become.
Poland and Hungary currently don’t have access to some EU finance because of their laws consistently eroding human rights.
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Poland isn’t as bad as Hungary.
Poland “right wing” is driven almost entirely by the catholic church. Hungary is considerably further to the right than that.
Poland is one to watch in the coming years.
There is very good reason why they are throwing tons of money at their military and will quite possibly end up being the military might of the region.
It’s economy is not flash, there are pockets of poverty and it can’t afford to go it alone. It is a member of UN treaties seeking progressive reductions in nuclear military capacity.
It will be constrained by EU and NATO membership in regard to going it alone, much more so than Turkey.
They are investing heavily on military upgrades and if it eventuates they will have a very formidable fleet of some of the best aircraft in the world accompanied by a very high tech ground capable force
But for what purpose, apart from self defence?
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I can think of at least one neighbor that might want to keep on its toes.
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