Friday, December 19, 2003

Call girl site gets best writing award

According to the UK edition of Internet Magazine, one of the winners of the British Blog Award by The Guardian is belle de jour, the diary of a London call girl. The site is hosted on BlogSpot and here's a sample of the award-winning writing:

As most transactions in my business are paid in cash I find myself at the bank rather often. I tend to use the same one at a similar time every day. Cashiers are naturally curious people who would have to be brain-dead not to wonder why I come in with rolls of bills several times a week and deposit into two accounts, one of which is not mine.

One day I presented the deposit details on the back of a slip the Boy had been sketching on. The cashier turned it over, looked at the drawing, and looked at me. "This is good. Did you do this?" she asked. "Yes, well, I'm a... cartoonist," I lied. Which is how the people at the bank came to believe that I draw for a living. Whether they took the next logical leap of questioning why any legitimate artist would demand payment in cash is unknown to me.

One advantage of this job is not being limited to the lunch hour for running errands. Therefore, I tend to go shopping in midafternoon. "Live close to here?" the grocer by the tube station asked one day, as I picked out apples and kiwifruit.

"Just around the corner," I said. "I work as a nanny." Which is blatantly unbelievable, as I never have children visibly in tow and, unless the Boy is staying over, am only buying for one. Still, he nodded, and now occasionally asks how the kids are doing.