La Belle is Revealed!
According to the Observer, the identity of Belle de Jour, the expensive London prostitute whose brilliant blog won the Guardian blog of the year award in 2004 has been revealed.
I'd often wondered if the blog was real; it was so well written, witty and yet somehow slightly unconvincing I suspected it might be a male professional writer behind it all. Then there were some very improbable clients, like the engineer who reads Literature. In over 20 years of working with a wide variety of engineers, I've yet to come across one whose reads anything other than Tolkien and sci-fi for fun. Then there was Belle herself, clearly a very intelligent highly educated woman, who seemed far too sensible to be earning a living in a dangerous and degrading profession that must be up there with bomb disposal and window cleaning in the dangerous accident stakes.
And yet... and yet... there was an undeniable female sensibility to the whole thing which a man would find very difficult to achieve on a sustained basis; Belle talks at length about beauty products, lingerie and shopping.
Anyway, it turns out Belle is in fact a woman, an experienced science blogger (!) and her real name is Dr Brooke Magnanti. She was indeed a high class hooker for about 14 months during the period Belle de Jour was the most compelling blog on the net.
The revelation provokes mixed feelings, but at least the blog is still out there for everyone to enjoy for years to come.
You can read the report here. The link to Belle de Jour is in the Celebrated Blogs section down there on the right.
I'd often wondered if the blog was real; it was so well written, witty and yet somehow slightly unconvincing I suspected it might be a male professional writer behind it all. Then there were some very improbable clients, like the engineer who reads Literature. In over 20 years of working with a wide variety of engineers, I've yet to come across one whose reads anything other than Tolkien and sci-fi for fun. Then there was Belle herself, clearly a very intelligent highly educated woman, who seemed far too sensible to be earning a living in a dangerous and degrading profession that must be up there with bomb disposal and window cleaning in the dangerous accident stakes.
And yet... and yet... there was an undeniable female sensibility to the whole thing which a man would find very difficult to achieve on a sustained basis; Belle talks at length about beauty products, lingerie and shopping.
Anyway, it turns out Belle is in fact a woman, an experienced science blogger (!) and her real name is Dr Brooke Magnanti. She was indeed a high class hooker for about 14 months during the period Belle de Jour was the most compelling blog on the net.
The revelation provokes mixed feelings, but at least the blog is still out there for everyone to enjoy for years to come.
You can read the report here. The link to Belle de Jour is in the Celebrated Blogs section down there on the right.
Labels: Book review
posted by roGER at 9:49 am
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