On Wednesday I posted a report about the closure of an irreverent English-language paper, The eXile, after 11 years' continuous publication in Russia.
I hadn't realised just how irreverent until a commenter (petrol) referred to it as "one of the most outrageous publications in the world" and explained: "Where else could you find the textual assassination of a journalist's copy (it made Private Eye's Hackwatch look like a gentle ribbing) next to a hands-on guide to this week's prostitute, described in a blow-by-blow account and scored on a sliding scale."
Now its editor, Mark Ames, has popped up in today's Mail on Sunday, to tell how he was forced into closure by the withdrawal of his financial backers and contributors, who were scared off by Soviet-style bureaucrats acting for the prime minister, and former president, Vladimir Putin. Read My paper's been dropped like a polonium-filled potato for poking fun at Putin and wonder at Russia's claims to press freedom.
