Editorial: Straight from the horse's mouth

The death of Richard Briers prompted plaudits and tributes lauding the 79-year-old actor's professional skills and private character in almost equal measure. Well it might. From Hamlet to Ever Decreasing Circles, from Watership Down to Roobarb, for the best part of half a century, Mr Briers has been a much-loved fixture of British television, radio and film.

But amid a long, long list of appearances, it is with The Good Life that Mr Briers' name will be forever most closely linked. The sitcom about Tom and Barbara Good's suburban self-sufficiency was a huge hit when it was aired in the mid-1970s and has been re-run any number of times since. Now, with horse meat turning up in beef burgers and the scandal spreading right across Europe, the fantasy of a city life replete with grow-your-own veg and garden-reared chickens (and pigs and goats) is more appealing than ever.