Secret life of London woman is surprise podcast hit in US

The intimate details of an anonymous young London woman's personal life have become one of the most downloaded podcasts in the United States.

The Faceless podcast, which is the brainchild of a local London breakfast DJ, also consistently ranks in the overall top 10 podcasts in the UK.

The only thing known about the woman is that she is a university student living in the capital. Each week, she calls a voicemail server and leaves a message for the Kiss FM DJ Bam Bam, who is the only person who knows her identity. He then transcribes the message and puts it through a voice synthesiser.

The weekly updates reveal the woman's innermost thoughts about men, sex, her parents and her obsession with her weight.

Each morning, Bam Bam plays short extracts on his show. Listeners who want to find out more can download the entire recording to their MP3 players.

In the first episode, the woman talks about her current beau, "the Body", and her obsessive calorie counting. In subsequent podcasts, she talks about her mum splitting up with her boyfriend, lesbian encounters and a trip to the STD clinic.

"It's an addiction when it comes to learning about girls," Bam Bam said. "It's got soap operatic value and reality television value. I love the fact that it can't be done on television - you would never get the release forms.

"I first did it in 2001, but ... the synthetic voice was nowhere near as good as it is now and it was a hard listen. When I came to do it again, I found the synthetic voice quality was much better.

"She has my guarantee that I will do everything I can to protect her identity. I'm the only person who can transcribe her message. I've told her that if she doesn't want to risk it, she doesn't have to."