Lebedev claims mercury poisoning

London journalists - especially those at the Evening Standard which he owns, and at the Independent which he might one day own - were still puzzling today at the extraordinary revelation from the Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev that he may be suffering from mercury poisoning.
 
The former KGB agent turned billionaire told Kate Weinberg in an interview published in Saturday's Daily Telegraph that tests had shown a mysterious spike in his blood mercury levels to 14 times the normal limit.

Lebedev dropped his bombshell in the course of an interview in the grounds of the boutique hotel he owns in Umbria. Looking the picture of health, according to Weinberg, he casually mentioned that his Belgian endocrinologist had warned him that there was enough mercury to enter his nervous system, then his brain, and begin to kill off his memory.
 
Lebedev joked: "Though if I wake up tomorrow morning and cannot remember Putin, that would be nice."
 
Before readers remembering the fate of Alexander Litvinenko could leap to the conclusion that it was the Kremlin wot dunnit, Lebedev said: "I think it has not come from a political enemy or a rival, but someone close to me," he says. "An old story: money... It's simple."

Asked by Weinberg whether he was still considering buying the Independent, Lebedev said: "I am following the picture. There are things to consider, the inevitable matter of redundancies and whether it has lost its niche in the market."

As for the Evening Standard, there was no hint in today's early edition of the proprietor's possible demise. ·