Brooke Magnanti misses her alter-ego Belle de Jour

Brooke Magnanti, the Bristol research scientist who outed herself this month as the call-girl blogger Belle de Jour, has claimed that she misses her old job. These days Magnanti is a 34-year-old scientist who works for the Bristol Initiative for Research of Child Health. But in 2003, Magnanti took up prostitution when she found herself running out of money in the final stages of her PhD and her alter-ego Belle de Jour was born. Magnanti spent 14 months working in London as an escort, charging £300 an hour.

In an interview with Mariella Frostrup for Sky Arts' The Book Show, which is to be broadcast tonight, Magnanti confesses that there are some aspects of escort work that she feels nostalgic for. "I miss the moment when you walk into a hotel, and get that feeling of 'I’m about to do a job and I'm about to do it well,’ " she said.

Belle de Jour also had a certain confidence, which Magnanti has never really enjoyed, she told Frostrup. "Like very many other jobs, you do turn on an aspect of your personality,” she said. “It isn't that Belle wasn't me - Belle is the more confident part of me."

The alter-ego gave Magnanti the self-assurance to deal with her clients. "Belle isn’t the part of me that when someone opens the door, is thinking: 'Do I look alright?’ Belle has to walk in and feel she looks alright."

Belle de Jour's identity was one of the Noughties great literary secrets and not even her agent knew who was really behind the blogs and books. Magnanti said she often feared that she might lose her job if her secret got out. But as The First Post reported recently, her colleagues were all "amazingly kind and supportive" when she told them last month.