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How Belle de Jour’s secret friend helped protect her
Blogger Darren guessed her identity six years ago and ‘Googlewhacked’ the press
There's a new twist to the story of the Bristol-based research scientist Dr Brooke Magnanti who outed herself last Sunday as the call girl turned blogger and bestselling author Belle de Jour.
A blogger called Darren has explained that he worked out who Belle de Jour was soon after she began blogging in 2003 about her experiences as a London escort (later televised with Billie Piper, above). But rather than spill the beans, Darren resolved to protect Belle's identity.
Back in 2003, there were still only a handful of established bloggers in Britain. After reading the first of her Belle de Jour entries, Darren concluded that she was "somebody who knew quite a lot about how UK blogging worked at the time" and must therefore be an already established blogger.
While the media concentrated on the notion that Belle de Jour was the pseudonym for a professional writer, Darren never believed that to be the case. "Apparently effortless blog writing takes practice, and required an understanding of a new medium which not many people had at the time. So I asked myself: 'Which blogger is it?'"
Darren, who had been blogging at LinkMachineGo.com since 2000, worked out that it was Magnanti because she had been posting scientific blogs - on Methylsalicylate and Cosmas - which he already knew well.
She also occasionally posted pieces of fiction and it was one such story, Malted, about whisky, which gave her away. "I remembered reading Malted a few months previously," said Darren, "and realised the style and content was reminiscent of Belle's and I was suddenly convinced I had the answer."
At which stage, another man might have outed her, or even blackmailed her. Not Darren. He decided to protect her from anyone else who might stumble on her identity.
On his own blog, he set up a 'Googlewhack' of Belle de Jour and Brooke Magnanti, creating the only page on the internet where the two names appeared together in an unrelated context. Using software that alerted him to the IP address of anyone accessing his site, he could therefore monitor everyone who tried Googling the two terms.
A few weeks ago, he spotted searches originating from an IP address at Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail. He contacted Magnanti by Twitter to tell her the paper was on to her.
Magnanti has confirmed that it was Darren's message that persuaded her to give her story to India Knight of the Sunday Times in order to foil a Mail scoop. In a comment on Darren's blog this week, she wrote: "I always thought Malted would be the one that fingered me. But I can't resist."
Darren wrote: "It's not every day the biggest secret you've ever kept gets revealed on the front pages of the national press." ·
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I am thankful to know that there are others, who follow their own drummer. There's hoping when one realizes that principles still hold for some of us -- may that be a beacon for young people and a message that empathy, honesty and self-restraint out of insight (!) is a noble attitude, indeed, in a world, where everything has a price attached. My hat is off, Darren -- it's also a great job done, to prevent the scandal-mongers from exploiting the story their vile ways. Regards from Germany
While it would be certainly of interest to discover that the call girl you are frequenting is a budding Nobel prize winning biochemist, isn't the breathless saga of how 'belle de jour' was outed is bit overdone? I invested £4 in a copy of 'belles' memoirs, not having heard of her before and found it on brief perusal no different from the dozens of 'confessions of a call girl' which have flooded the market for years. Not much sign of impressive literary quality. Don't read blogs so can't judge for that.
Just another instance of the sad situation, well documented by the First Post, of how little there is to do or occupy the attention in Britain..
Well done Darren. Discretion and loyalty. Rare commodities in this day and age!