Belle de Jour, R.I.P.

It is with great sadness that I report on the passing of one of the most interesting and addictive blogs out there. Belle de Jour is/was the online diary of an extremely witty and articlulate London call girl, who also won the Guardian's Best Blog of 2003. She gets her name from the classic French movie of the same name, starring the incomparable Catherine Deneuve as a bored housewife who spends her afernoons as a brothel prostitute while her husband is at work.

At the height of its popularity, the blog was the subject of much speculation around London, with the media intent on finding out her real identity and indulging in a guessing game that went on for months. Some even went as far as to claim that she wasn't a call girl at all, but a famous writer who could even be male!

Her full diary has just been published in a book, and here's the Amazon synopsis:

Belle de Jour is the diary of a London call-girl. This isn't a salacious catalogue of sexual encounters, rather it's the unfolding story of her life: the difficulties in juggling her very understanding boyfriend with her profession; the question of what to wear to work; the problems associated with managing pubic topiary and the often hilarious hypocrisies she bears witness to every day. And of course, there's the odd sexual encounter thrown in for good measure... It's witty, compelling, educative and oddly moving. Belle is a twenty-first century Moll Flanders who will appeal to women because of her honesty and guts, and to men because she lifts the lid on what call girls are really thinking...

I hadn't checked in with the blog for a while and just found out this morning that it has been discontinued by its author. I'm just impressed that she managed to keep her identity a complete secret!