Via Stuart Hughes comes the news that Belle de Jour, the London whore who won The Guardian's British Blog Awards really may not exist. Rumours that she's a faker started almost as soon as she won, and persisted despite the fact that she's apparently got a book deal now. Now The Times has revealed that they believe the real writer to be one Sarah Champion.
If this is true, I think The Guardian really ought to demand repayment of the prize money and give it and the title to Stuart Hughes, whose blog was essentially the runner up. I never liked the fact that the slut won – I had the feeling that she won because of her subject material and the shock value that afforded The Guardian, not because of any inherant worth in her blog. It's like titillation value was more important than ability to touch or affect other people's lives.
Hughes, on the other hand, has been through and blogged with honesty and emotion about life-changing events – he stepped on a land mine in Iraq and subsequently went through a below the knee amputation. His is a blog which it not only well written, but emotive, interesting, thoughtful and at times even awe-inspiring. He has reached not only other amputees with his writing, but also helped to give non-amputees more understanding of what it's like to go through the loss of a limb. And, of course, he blogs about a wide range of other subjects that makes his blog more well-round and interesting than most.
Frankly, I think that's far more valuable to the the blogging community than some woman in Manchester pretending to be a call girl in London.
I read about this in the Times this morning and thought about mentioning it to you but couldn't be arsed.
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