THIS year has seen the deaths of many cultural icons both here and abroad, among them music legends David Bowie and Leonard Cohen, novelist William Trevor, actor Frank Kelly, and the irrepressible TV star Terry Wogan.

Restaurant critic AA Gill has died after a short battle with cancer, it has been announced. He was 62.

EVEN if you don’t read The Sunday Times, you may have heard about the fuss caused by a throwaway paragraph of critic AA Gill’s TV review.