Chris Blackhurst's imprint on The Independent - a redesign, farewells to Jemima Khan, Sally Ann Lasson and Adam Leigh - is in evidence again today with the departure of columnist Julie Burchill.
Many an Indy reader will welcome her passing, though I suspect she has a dedicated following too. Like all iconoclasts, she seeks to provoke, not to be liked.
"I've earned a lush living solely by scribbling from the age of 17 to my current age of 52," she writes in her farewell column today.
Indeed she has. With stints on various papers - including the Sunday Times, Mail on Sunday, The Guardian (five years from 1998) and The Times - she has enjoyed unrivalled exposure for her idiosyncratic opinions.
In the mid-1980s, I tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit her for The Sun. I still think that would have been a good marriage for both, at the time and since.
Then again, my admittedly occasional reading of her columns in recent years has left my feeling that she realises her old schtick is no longer working.
She has run out of steam - and sympathetic newspaper editors.
