"Are You Free, Miss Brahms?"

Sadly, I'm afraid the answer is yes, for the sad news from the UK is that we have lost the lovely Miss Wendy Richard, whose career stretched from early days as a quintessential Saucy Bird in Swinging London to her long, long stint as a longsuffering EastEnders matriarch.

In between, she guaranteed her place in PBS Heaven as part of the ensemble that turned the often shambolic scripts of Are You Being Served? into comic gold. As Shirley Brahms, she was a breath of fresh air amid the smutty innuendo and quadruple entendre, the perfect foil to Mollie Sugden's pastel-tressed termagent Mrs. Slocombe and John Inman's ineffably fey Mr. Humphries.

She joins the ever-lengthening list of the much-to-be-missed. At least we know she'll always be there, over on the left behind the ladies' intimates counter, just waiting to be ogled or to ask, all wide-eyed innocence, about the state of Mrs. Slocombe's pussy...