Lending my (limited) expertise

Via Crooked Timber, I discover the Times reporting that the author of Belle de Jour is alleged to be a woman called Sarah Champion. Belle denies this.

Reading that, I thought 'I know that name' and soon realised it's because I've got a book - Disco 2000 - edited by her. So, I dug it out and discovered that, as well as editing it, she had written the introduction for it. 'Ah-ha', I think 'this'll solve the mystery and make me famous over the internet.' Well, maybe it would if I had the forensic literary skills of Don Foster, the American academic who identified her as the author. As it is, I can only go by personal opinion and give it a definite maybe.

(As an aside, I can spot one potential flaw in Professor Foster's analysis, which is that it relies on the assumption that Belle is a fictional creation and there is the possibility - though slim, I assume - that Belle is real and he has merely identified two female writers with very similar styles of writing)

From re-reading all six pages of Sarah Champion's introduction to Disco 2000 and then reading through some of Belle's entries, there does appear to be a certain resemblance between the two, but I'm not confident enough to say that they're the same person. Firstly, there's not enough writing by Champion in Disco 2000 to make it possible to discern a distinct style and secondly, there's little autobiographical writing in the Introduction - the majority of it is an introduction to the various stories within the book. However, those snippets of autobiographical writing in there are close enough in style to Belle to make me think that Foster's conclusions aren't entirely without merit.

But, why not judge for yourself? Here's a bit from the introduction:

It's weird how dates stick in your mind. To use telephone banking you have to give a string of passwords including 'memorable time and place'. Mine is 11 May 1985, Moss Side, Manchester (though I'll have to change it now). That was the night I had my first experience of pre-millenial tension...
At the age of fourteen, my school friend invited me to a concert at her church. I found myself the only white person in a black Pentecostal church, witnessing five hours of apocalyptic passion - end-is-nigh gospel interspersed by hell 'n' brimstone sermons with hysterical, elderly Jamaican women running down the aisle in tears, giving ten pound notes to the Pastor.
Afterwards, already spooked, I had to wait for a lift on a dodgy street corner, watching shadowy figures disappearing up a staircase above a chippy, to buy 'draw'. Then there was a siren. A burglar alarm? It couldn't be as the sound was coming from all directions. It was the siren made famous in Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Two Tribes' - the four minute nuclear warning. It sounded for twenty minutes. The streets were empty: there was no panic. Where was it being broadcast from? The street lamps? The telephone junction boxes?
Except for a tiny report in a local paper, no one commented. Sometimes, I wonder if it ever happened at all. But that night in Moss Side something changed for me. Ever since, I've lived with the eerie feeling that these really were the 'last days' - strange times that had to be lived to the full.

Update: Other discussion of this at Troubled Diva (where Belle was 'outed' in the comments) and Harry's Place, where Spin laments that no one's going to such lengths to try and identify him.