I was asked to photoshop a mate into a picture of a model for a fake relationship advice column for a well-known newspaper in Beijing, China. The weekly column, Ask Alessandro, was a satire, pertaining to an outdated Italian stereotype. Then The Wall Street Journal Online saw it.

They didn’t mince their words:

The piece is so vulgar, we cannot even think of a way to summarize it for a family newspaper’s Web site – nor to provide a link to it (suffice it to say it involves an incoherent and offensive discussion of the female anatomy).

Quite a few papers and blogs picked up on the story before Ask Alessandro was pulled, never to amuse the Beijing expat readership again.