[bdj] Some Belle de Jour links I missed …

» Belledejour.co.uk … BDJ has a domain name.

» I am not Belle de Jour … somebody should sell this to Sarah Champion.

» Who is Belle de Jour? — the Daily Mail “investigated” the identity of BDJ back in April. ‘…we know rather a lot about Belle. Except, of course, her true identity, which has been the subject of frenzied speculation in publishing circles. Rumours abound. There are even those who even insist Belle is a he, not a she.’

[blogs] How to write a Blog-Buster — Guardian Online covers Fiction written using the blog format … On Belle de Jour: ‘The anonymous prostitute’s diary is a familiar genre in erotic fiction, one that, in print, probably wouldn’t float many boats these days. But via the blog form’s sense of immediacy, Belle de Jour has revived the cliches so successfully that publishers are offering six-figure advances and journalists are desperate to find out who the real Belle de Jour is. But her real identity, call girl or literary hoaxer, is something of a side issue. The blog gets so much attention because, with its teasing sequence of daily “entries”, it tells an old story in a new way.’

[bdj] ‘I am a young woman. I have sex for money. And I love to write. This is my story…’ — BdJ wrote a five page article for the Sunday Telegraph Magazine …

» Don Foster in the Observer’s Letters: ‘Never have I said, either on or off the record, that Belle’s identity has been established by anything I ever said or contributed. I made perfectly clear, in a series of telephone conversations and email exchanges with the Times, of which I have a complete record, that Champion is a person of interest. Contrary to what the Times has reported, I do not believe that the search for Belle is over.’

» Sarah Champion’s Belle De Jour Page — links and scans of articles.

» “Belle de Jour” and literary forensics — more analysis of the text of BdJ. ‘…literary forensics is harder than it looks. It’s the practice of determining authorship from quirks, styles, idiosyncrasies, etc. I’ve played around with it, and been wrong. My speculations, which again, might certainly be wrong: 1) The “Belle de Jour” blog is a fake, written by at least two people, one starting it, then another taking over later. 2) At least the second person, the one who took over, is a journalist. I’m more certain of #1 than #2.’

» Belle De Jour: Diary of a London Call Girl by Anonymous at Amazon.co.uk.

[bdj] Belle Doesn’t Ring True — the Guardian rolls out Cynthia Payne to analyse BdJ … ‘I think this is filth, and I certainly don’t want to be associated with it. I was never involved in anything like this. In my day, we did it the proper way – £25 without extras, food and drink, and a choice of ladies. We knocked off £5 for old age pensioners and we charged men half-price if they were past it, and just fancied watching. We had a high-class clientèle – no rowdy kids, no yobs, all well-dressed men in suits, who knew how to respect a lady.’

[bdj] Did Register staffer mastermind ‘call-girl weblog’ conspiracy? — the Register responds to the allegation that Andrew Orlowski is BdJ. Orlowski: I’m shocked. To be accused of being a whore is one thing, but to be accused of being a weblogger is actionable.’

[bdj] I was Branded a Call-Girl Blogger — Sarah Champion on what it’s Like to be mistaken for Belle de Jour … ‘Ever since I found myself described as a ‘wild child’ in a local paper as a teenager, I dreaded that one day I would wake up to find paparazzi outside my door. Since then I’ve published a book of ecstasy drug stories in the wake of Leah Betts’s death, briefly dated a well-known TV comedian and shared a spliff with a former member of the Beatles. But it never once occurred to me that what would finally bring the paparazzi to my door would be my use of commas.’

[bdj] Who is the real Belle de Jour, the internet’s best-read whore? — The Independent suggests that Andrew Orlowski is Belle De Jour. ‘…as soon as one name appeared to slip from the frame, another one sprang up to replace it. The new contender is Andrew Orlowski, who grew up on the opposite side of the Pennines to Ms Champion, but with whom she collaborated on a number of minor publications in the early years of the last decade. Described in some quarters as a “cult figure”, Mr Orlowski has a record of cultured sex writing on the internet. Yesterday, however, he was not taking any calls.’

» Of Course Belle Was Faking It. That’s What Sex – And Cyberspace – Are All About — Jeanette Winterson on BdJ … ‘Belle is a natural-born blogger; her style is witty and compact, with the right mixture of intimacy and disassociation. We feel we know her, yet we don’t know her at all — doubly so, if she turns out to be a fake.’

» Tom Coates on BdJ … ‘Can we really be so shocked and startled by the idea that one of the enormous number of prostitutes in the world has decided to write a weblog? Certainly it’s worth a read. She seems like a nice, sorted, intelligent person.’

[bdj] Picture of Sarah Champion (outed yesterday as Belle De Jour) found on Andrew Orlowski’s website. Doesn’t it seem a little suspicious that the biggest critic of blogging at the very least worked with Sarah Champion in the past and they are both currently based in San Francisco? [thanks Rachel!]

» Orlowski on Badpress: ‘How I became a journalist. Scandalsheet started in 1992 with Sarah Champion. The first issue (150) was printed in 24 hours. Sarah has no recollection of this night.’

» Orlowski’s Byline in the Register: ‘Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco’

» Sarah Champion’s Location: ‘Last night Ms Champion, who is currently living with her boyfriend in California, did not deny that she was the woman behind Belle. “I’m in San Francisco at the moment… to hide,” she said, laughing.’

[bdj] Internet Call-Girl Unmasked — the Times unmasks Belle de Jour. … ‘Don Foster, America’s foremost literary sleuth, identified quirks in Belle’s text, such as the way she uses brackets, dashes, compound verbs and italics. He entered this information into Google, the internet search engine, and within 20 minutes found that Miss Champion was the only person who matched the linguistic fingerprint. “While no piece of evidence is conclusive by itself, I’m sure we have found our woman,” he said.’

[bdj] Who is ‘Belle de Jour’, the high-class Hooker whose Web Diary is set to be a Literary Sensation? — the Sunday Times suggests that Belle de Jour maybe writer Christopher Hart.


‘…vague echoes and coincidences? Perhaps. But there are links between Belle’s blog and the real Hart, too. Early on in the blog Belle hangs out in the Blue Posts, a pub in Soho. It happens to be just round the corner from The Erotic Review, with which Walsh has of late been keeping in close contact, according to some sources.’

[bdj] The Web Diary, the Book Deal and the very Happy Hooker [Password] — major article in the Times covering Belle De Jour’s Book Deal and the questions about authenticity and identity which surround the Blog … ‘So what does Belle look like? “It was simply nice to see that she wasn’t Toby Young,” jokes her editor Helen Garnons-Williams, relating their first meeting.’

[bdj] The Times covers Belle De Jour’s recently announced Book Deal … ‘Belle de Jour, the internet’s most talked-about web diary, has a book deal. According to Publisher’s Marketplace, the London call girl, who may or may not be a literary name masquerading as a high-class hooker, has inked a deal with Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion to turn her anonymous tales of love-for-money into a manuscript due for delivery in August. The film rights are also being frantically contested. Which begs the question: what happens when her parents find out?’

[bdj] Belle de Jour was featured in Arrivals/Departures in this months Face Magazine …



» ‘It therefore follows that I must have a stalker, but as it is a good time of year for stalkers, I’ll let it go for now.’

[blogs] According to Popbitch the weblog Belle De Jour is writen by a “young Brit author” such as Zadie Smith (or Toby Young, Caitlin Moran, Tony Parsons and Alastair Campbell – maybe it’s a group blog?) … [via Scary Duck]

[blogs] Kiss & Tell — London Call-Girl Belle De Jour makes the New York Post … ‘The author is a fascinating character. Now, if we only knew her real name. Her pseudonym is derived from the 1967 French film in which Catherine Deneuve plays a housewife who turns to prostitution. But this Belle is no housewife. She won’t post a picture, but she will reveal this much: She’s a Londoner “in [her] 20s.” with a steady boyfriend referred to only as The Boy. There are those, however, who claim she’s a fraud.’

[ukkblogs] Updated UK Weblogs — I’ve spent the last few weeks updating the list of Recently Updated UK Weblogs. There are plenty of interesting UK blogs to check out …

• XFM Breakfast Show Blog… ‘We’re in trouble with the Muppets, apparently. After the interview yesterday, when Christian, erm, questioned Fozzie Bear closely about his sexuality, the Henson people have apprently gone tits. I hope they don’t set Animal on us. The bear doth protest too much, methinks.’
  
  
• Belle de Jour — Diary of a London Call Girl …‘The client was in law enforcement, and the first time out he’d taken me to a semiformal work event. From the ratio of nubile cuties to paunchy detectives, I may not have been the only paid girl there. Or perhaps the Met’s PR efforts are paying off in unexpected ways.’
  
  
• Memex 1.1 — John Naughton’s online diary … ‘I’ve discovered that I appear in Colin Jarman’s The Nasty Quote Book! [I described Radovan Karadzic, the infamous Serbian politician as “a rambling, inconsistent, sentimental, bouffanted crook”. Nasty, perhaps; but also true.]’