belle de jour -01.06.2004

I wonder, seeing as most people don't know who you are, how many girls in London are pretending to be you with their clients?

mercredi 30 juin
Interesting question in email:

HT Image

>I wonder, seeing as most people don't know who you are, how many girls
in London are pretending to be you with their clients?

It hadn't occurred to me someone might do so. The people who have met me 'as' Belle are the agent, the editor, someone who works for the agent, the fellow I described having lunch with, the other fellow I described having coffee with, an accountant, Rowan Pelling and One Other Person. Almost none of these people know Belle as me, if that makes sense. Which is to say they know neither my name nor where I live. And Belle is not the name I use for working, so none of the clients (to my knowledge) know.

Hello, One Other Person. I will refer to you as OOP from now on unless you've any objection.

Has anyone met someone claiming to be me whom you did not initially contact through this email address?

If so, was she hot?

Also in email, regarding Tiger Tim,

>OPEN YOUR EYES! he looks like the devil and is ugly with bad teeth! And kinda skinny legs. Plus he's dull.

I know, that's the real shame... there's just no accounting for taste, is there?

And finally,

>Gonna be in New York come July?

Apparently strippers and working girls the world over are converging on that city during the Republican convention.

Tempting. Donald Rumsfeld is top man-totty.

// posted by belle @ 9:31 AM

mardi29 juin
I have succumbed to the most dangerous ailment of the English summer.

This is not, before you wonder, the tendency to expose acres of white flesh ripe for the burning as soon as the sun so much as peeks from behind a cloud, nor to complain when the weather is warm for longer than three days. It is not the heady, yet sick, desire to cram myself in to the Harrod's and Selfridge's sales along with a significant portion of the rest of the city, nor to lament about the price and relative value of a 99. I am not overcome with the feverish need to attend a music festival nor go surfing down Cornwall way. No, it is a more malignant and incurable disease than that.

Watching the tennis with friends yesterday, I suddenly thought, 'my, but that Tim Henman is rather cute.' And I sat through his excruciating match until well past suppertime.

If someone knows an antidote, please advise.

// posted by belle @ 11:02 AM

lundi28 juin
Morning post - a taste of today's Inbox.

>I notice that in your blog you paint yourself shallow and snobbish. That's simply an
>observation, each to their own and all that. I only point this out to give you some
>indication on how you're coming across.

Thank you, Samantha. I notice that in your email, you paint yourself as hectoring and superior. Simply an observation. Each to her own.

To reply to your observation, I paint myself as shallow and snobbish because I am, and believe people who say they are not with straight faces are ignorant or lying. I am an alumna of fine public schools ('private' to North Americans), where 'shallow and snobbish' might well have been the motto.

Now, from the comparatively sublime to the ridiculous:

>I think its a real shame that you will lower yourself to such depths to get a shag
>and then be so triumphant about it. Trust me honey...you didn't get one up on
>anybody. Why don't you stick to fucking rich clients and being a professional slut?

Thank you, Lion Pumper. I didn't mean to paint myself as a hero in any of that. Unlike a lot of people, I'm willing to share episodes in my life even if they are ill-advised, regrettable or plain stupid.

Did you initialise a Hotmail account specifically to send me this email? I think it's a 'real shame' anyone will lower himself to the point where scoring points off an anonymous blogger is worth such effort.

(Readers: you would be correct in assuming that by writing about my email rather than the weekend, nothing of import happened. Lovely morning, though, isn't it?)

// posted by belle @ 9:11 AM

jeudi 24 juin
There's no why to ex sex, there's only the how (long it will last, soon it will be over, fast can I leave). Most of my exes are friends, and most of my friends are exes, and I don't fuck them afterward as a rule. But there are one or two who fall out of touch, usually because there was little in the relationship worth building a friendship on, and this was one.

The morning he left he offered me a lift to a meeting - the literary agent if you must know. Before we could go, though, he asked if I had any money on me. I didn't. Except when working, I usually carry less spare change than the Queen.