Name: Pravda.

Age: Around 100 years, or 16 years, or 14 years.

Appearance: Either an old newspaper, or a new newspaper, or one of two websites.

Well, this is confusing. It certainly is.

Are we talking about Pravda, the famous newspaper? In a way we are.

Which means "truth" in Russian? That is indeed what Pravda means.

Associated with fearsomely dull Soviet propaganda about tractor production and beetroot yields? Sort of. Although that newspaper doesn't exist any more, except as the one that replaced it.

Right. Let's simplify this. What the flipping crikey are you on about? I forgive you for being confused. John McCain is too.

That's not what you'd call a rare event. Perhaps not, but this time he has an excuse. When the New York Times published an opinion piece on Syria by the Russian presi-tyrant Vladimir Putin, McCain said in a TV interview that he'd "like to have the chance to have a commentary in Pravda!"

And did he get his wish? In a way.

Stop talking like that! Well, it's tricky, because if McCain meant the famous newspaper that was established in the years before the 1917 revolution and went on to become the official organ of the Communist party, then no, he hasn't written for it because that newspaper was closed down by Boris Yeltsin in 1991.

But? But shortly afterwards several Pravda journalists got something similar started up again under the same name. It was bought and sold a few times and is now again, in a way, owned by Russia's (new) Communist party. It looks a bit ropey and not many people read it.

But? But that still wasn't the Pravda that McCain ended up writing for. Indeed, that Pravda said they wouldn't publish anything containing McCain's anti-Assad views. Instead, he was contacted by pravda.ru, which is a website and not a newspaper at all. Nor is it linked to the Communist party.

And? And McCain told journalists, when asked if he knew which Pravda he would be writing for: "I hope it's Pravda the Communist publication."

Oops. Well, thanks for that explanation. A pleasure. I hope the readers of the Sutton Guardian find it interesting.

Oops. What do you mean?

Do say: "If only Britain had a national newspaper that was sort of the Guardian but also sort of not."

Don't say: "Isn't that the Observer?"