The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Besha Rodell, a columnist with the Australia bureau.

Coronavirus is now claiming so many lives that The Times has had to reassign some of its reporters to help on the obituaries desk. It feels to me like every day, another cultural figure who has touched my life in some profound way is lost to the virus.

Last week, it was the musician John Prine, who was supposed to be touring Australia this month. This week, the death that hurt the most was the British comedian Tim Brooke-Taylor.

Mr. Brooke-Taylor was one third of the comedy group The Goodies, along with Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie. The group had an eponymous television show that ran for a decade on the BBC in Britain (from 1970 to 1980), and played on endless reruns on the ABC in Australia throughout the afternoons of my childhood.

The show was ridiculous and surreal and hilarious, and Tim Brooke-Taylor in particular made a huge impact on my young mind. His wildly emotional British patriotism and devotion to the Queen has helped to inspire a lifelong tongue-in-cheek adoration of Her Majesty in my own life and household, which now contains a large collection of vintage royal memorabilia.