[London] Evening Standard Diary 18/3/2004

The mystery continues about the identity of the Internet call girl diarist Belle De Jour following a robust denial from the mother of the latest suspect, Sarah Champion (pictured). Attention is now focusing on Andrew Orlowski a Yorkshireman who lives in San Francisco and is, intriguingly, an acquaintance of Champion's. 

The pair collaborated in Manchester on short-lived publications during the early Nineties and Champion is also based in California. Orlowski is also something of cult figure amongst fellow webloggers and has written about sex on the Internet for The Independent. His mobile phone was not working when I called. Belle Du Jour's agent Patrick Walsh denies it is Orlowski. "Belle came in this morning. she is not a man. She is who she says she is - a working prostitute." Others suspect the hand of author Michel Faber whose novel The Crimson Petal and the White centered on a low-brow tart with highbrow tastes, not too dissimilar to Belle De Jour. Faber's agent is Patrick Walsh.