Strictlycomedancingnot

The Time of my Life...

2009-03-01T03:47:00.000-08:00

Seguing neatly on from my last post (and ignoring temporarily how long ago that was), if you didn't see Paddy and Keith's brilliant take on Dirty Dancing on Let's Dance for Comic Relief last night, let me share the joy of it with you here.

They even did THE LIFT!!!! And the second time they did it properly!!!

I missed last week's episode, but thanks to Marie did see Robert Webb's hilarious Flashdance spoof. I can't quite decide which one I liked more, but I share the joy of Robert Webb too. Priceless...

I have had difficulty
a) explaining to the kids that Paddy and Keith really really aren't gay
and
b) yes Robert Webb is a man...

Can't wait to see what they all do in the final...

Nobody puts Baby in a Corner

2009-01-09T02:08:00.001-08:00

I somehow managed to miss Dirty Dancing when it came out. What can I say? I was in my final year at university, and it seemed like a teenybopper romance film that wouldn't appeal to me. It was several years later when I worked with someone who was obsessed by it that it dawned on me that somehow an iconic moment in cinema history had passed me by. It still wasn't enough to get me to watch it though, as it's certainly not my husband's kind of film (Crap scifi and slasher/gore are more his thing), so I had it down as One To Watch With The Girls, which of course meant I never got round to it. I nearly saw it a few years ago when my salsa teacher recommended it to help us practise our moves. I duly borrowed it from a friend who is nigh word perfect on the script, and it sat on the side by the tv unwatched for weeks because I didn't have time, and in the end I gave it back to my friend without having seen it as I had visions of one of the children spilling juice on it.

When I was researching Strictly Love though, I bought a whole load of dance movies, Grease, Fame, Strictly Ballroom, and Dirty Dancing. Now was surely the time to make up for this gap in my film education.

I have to say I was completely taken by surprise by the film. I thought it would be a very sappy teen romance that I could happily have shown the children, and was gobsmacked to discover the storyline features abortion. (I still haven't let the kids watch it). I'm not a huge Patrick Swayze fan, and the name "Baby" makes me puke, but actually, though you do think this is a summer romance that is never going to last, there is a lot to like in this film. The dancing is fabulous of course, but I also do like the character of Baby who stays to true to her principles even though it costs her dear. It is also quite interesting about prejudice and people taking certain situations for granted.

So... there's a lot more to it then I imagined, and of course it also has that brilliant dance scene at the end when Baby finally manages the Lift. As a semi ironic joke I dedicated Strictly Love to my husband with the words, I owe it all to you, which my mother took seriously, having never seen the film. She thought it was a lovely sentiment, and after giving it consideration and taking away the cynical head which says Time of my Life is pure tack, I think I agree. Dirty Dancing is all about people loving one another and supporting each other whatever life throws at them. And as a romantic novelist, how can I gainsay that?

So when I was kindly offered free tickets to go and see Dirty Dancing the Musical by the very kind people at Arthur Leone pr company, I was delighted to take them up on the offer. Besides, it's not EVERY day someone gives me some free theatre tickets (and having just spent a small fortune on Oliver! tickets, such generosity is certainly not to be sniffed at in these credit crunch times...) Obviously I couldn't take my other half who'd be deeply unappreciative, so I asked my Dirty Dancing loving friend along instead, which came in rather handy as she remembered more of the plot then I did.

Now I'd love to say that Dirty Dancing the Musical was as much fun as say, Mamma Mia! which I've seen twice, but unfortunately I don't really think it is. For a start the script is slavishly close to the film (according to the DDLF anyway), whereas the film and stage show of Mamma Mia! are rightly two very different beasts.

The film (and stage show) starts with Baby and her family en route to a holiday camp. The film starts with them in a car, listening to music, and on stage, this has been converted to a stage car with scenery running behind it. Hmm... That just didn't work for me. Neither did most of the set, which revolved, and had bits popping out of the floor in a manner I found most distracting. Apart from worrying everytime the dancers were dancing on the revolving floor, I kept losing track of who was saying what and where because my eye was caught by some inappropriate bit of scenery going up and down for no apparent reason.

I also had a huge problem with the chemistry between the leads, in that for me there wasn' any. (And here I'm going to be horribly vague, as we forgot to buy a programme so I am not sure of anyone's names.) When Johnny danced with Penny the world lit up, but when he danced with Baby (and yes of course at the beginning she can't dance), I just didn't feel there was any chemistry at all.

Also oddly enough, for a musical about dancing, there didn't seem to be nearly enough. And for a stage show that was meant to be a musical, there wasn't enough singing.

I don't think this is the actors fault, but a fault of the show itself, which is trying to replicate the movie so accurately (maybe rightly - perhaps this is what Dirty Dancing fans want, although my DDLF was underwhelmed. Mind you, she did say it was partly because Johnny was too "clean".) that it forgets to be a musical.

Having said all that, the dancing when it happened was stunning. And the end of the show was really spectacular. In fact, I could have done with lots more of Billy's singing (the actor playing him had an AMAZING voice) and everyone dancing and less of the silly sets, and people aimlessly wandering on and off just because that's what happens in the film.

There also was a fantastic moment right at the end when everyone was anticipating Johnny's return and he suddenly burst through the audience uttering the iconic line, "Nobody puts Baby in a corner", which clearly all the proper Dirty Dancing fans were waiting for as the theatre exploded. And then so did the stage. Suddenly it was rocking with life, and I felt like I was watching a completely different show. The Lift of course was brilliant, and again you could tell the DD fans were gagging for it. And the encore was also great, leaving me wishing that the whole show had had as much energy. (I dunno, maybe the cast were too worried by the revolving turntable to dance their hearts out earlier).

So... An enjoyable evening. Probably a must if you're a Dirty Dancing fan. But was it as good as the film? No I don't think so...

It's the Final Countdown...

2008-12-21T02:29:00.000-08:00

Or rather it was.

You may or may not have noticed I didn't get round to posting about last week's Strictly Show. This was partly due to lack of time, and partly because I thought the whole voting debacle was a pile of crap. It was so patently obvious that they wanted three couples in the last show. It was also patently obvious that the maths didn't add up to make Tom able to go through. Why they couldn't have just dispensed with last week altogether I don't know. None of the dances rocked my boat particularly, but I thought Tom deserved credit for attempting a jive when the girls played safe with ballroom. Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure technically they were much better, but hell Tom's jive was so much more fun.

Anyway. Onwards and upwards as they say.

I have to confess that despite thinking I had lost total interest in this year's competition since Austin went out, I thoroughly enjoyed last night's show.

Rachel's foxtrot was pretty flawless. Did it deserve forty points? Not sure. They seem to have given out tens likes smarties this series but when I watched the previous champions dancing together I thought not one of the finalists was a patch on any of them (except possibly Darren Gough).

Tom and Camilla's clearly wasn't as good technically (I still think it's harder for the bloke - if you're a crap dancer and being led by a professional, that has to be easier, doesn't it?), but I just loved his style. So I think the judges were a bit harsh myself.

Lisa and Brendan's was lovely to watch, but I found it strangely uninvolving. I know, I know, she made the best improvement overall, but I couldn't help feeling the judges were marking her ridiculously high to make up for the fact that the public were clearly voting for Tom Chambers.

Moving swiftly over the return of the previous contestants (who reminded us all why they went off so quickly), I did enjoy Rachel and Vincent's rumba, but I couldn't quite rave about it as much as the judges did. Tom's samba was a lot of fun - again - and Lisa's Cha Cha Cha may have been technically improved from last time, but didn't do anything for me.

I think losing Lisa at this point was the right call. I still can't understand why the judges saved her at the expense of Austin, who by rights should have won this. But hey nonny nonny no, the Great British Public do occasionally get it right...

I'd also like to point out here (in the absence of Marie as she is on holiday) that some weeks ago she pointed out the similarity of Rachel Stevens' brothers to the Mitchell boys - Tess, you're just too slow...

The second wave of returning dancers reminded us what we lost in terms of fun from Mark Foster (yes, we were right, he really was that bad), Heather Small (who was much better last night then on any of the shows. It must have been nerves), Cherie Lunghi (who was as good as I remember, but I am still irritated that she and James were such poor sports) and John Sergeant, who was just as much fun as I thought he was.

The third wave just made me a) wonder again why oh why did Christine last so long?, b) miss Jodie and c) wish I could have seen a final with Austin in it.

I thought it was very nice they gave Lisa an opportunity to do her show dance, but it confirmed for me that yes, she really should have been in third place.

Now all the way through this competition, I haven't really got Rachel. I think she dances beautifully, but she lacks emotion somehow. I have to say that in her show dance, for the first time I thought she really came alive and lit up the floor. It was wonderful to watch, and I was convinced she had it in the bag. The judges seemed to be so down on Tom, and technically he clearly can't compete with Rachel.

But then.... Oh then... Tom and Camilla produced the most hilarious witty, entertaining show dance. It was fantastic. The return of the penguin. And with so much style...Tom leapt and gurned his way around the stage, looking as if he was having a blast. I laughed the whole way through it. If there were people wavering, I think that dance won him the competition. It was fabulous.

While they filled in time we also got to see the returning champions's show dance, which was great fun, but also Kristina and alien faced Brian (as Marie calls him - and in Marie's absence I feel duty bound to keep the faith) did an amazing Cha Cha Cha to Duffy singing Mercy, which I can't unfortunately find on You Tube.

But here for your delectation and delight are firstly Rachel and Steven, who were fabulous too.

Just not a patch on Tom and Camilla. Worthy winners in the end...

Hurrah!

2008-12-02T07:39:00.001-08:00

We've finally lost boring Christine. Do you think that the judges were getting their revenge for not having had the opportunity to vote John Sergeant off?

As I had a manically busy weekend, followed by my pulling my back out yesterday I've only had a chance to catch up on the dances on the SCD website.

From what I saw I think it was Christine's time to go. Didn't think much of either of her dances. Can't say Lisa wowed me that much either, but the judges seem to like her.

Tom's samba was every bit as camp as Bruno said it was, and I liked his waltz, but I thought Rachel's and Vincent's was better.

Laughed out loud at Rachel and Vincent's paso doble. Might have known Len would object to the cloak. But it wasn't a patch on Austin and Erin's which oled all the way to being the best latin dance of the series I'd say.

I think Austin has to win it, for overall consistency and sheer entertainment value, but I'm really not sure who should be in the final with him. I think for dancing ability it should be Rachel, but the judges seem to really like Lisa for some reason I can't fathom, and Tom when he hits a high really hits it. But I suspect he isn't quite good enough. So my money is on it being Austin FTW and Lisa in the final, but then again, I've been dead wrong before.

And if like me you're suffering from a maniacal life at present, and haven't seen Austin and Erin's paso doble, here it is in all it's glory.

Ole!

Oh No!

2008-11-24T01:15:00.000-08:00

Now that Jodie's gone, who do I vote for?

I thought it was a real pity that she went last night because not only was her jive highly entertaining (and boy did we need some entertaining on Saturday night - I thought it was a peculiarly flat and odd show myself), she was clearly so ill she hadn't had much time to practise. But hurrah for Jodie she was dignified and gracious in defeat even though her dance this week was much better then Christine's. Do you think all John Sergeant's The One Show voters have switched allegiance. Now WOULDN'T that be funny? They can't vote for John but they vote for Christine who'll end up winning because she's the closest the public can get to voting for John.

Mind you, that wouldn't be right would it, because once again I found her dance bland and dull -was it the cha cha cha? (see I don't even remember). I also found Lisa's quickstep bland and dull. And Rachel's foxtrot was lovely but full marks??? I don't think so. Are the judges proving a point do you think? See, public you wanted an old man who couldn't dance, but we're going to inflict another young beauty who can for the final...

Jodie's jive, I thought was great. Tom's tango less great. But the dance that made my night was Austin and Erin's cha cha cha which was fun and cheeky and ENTERTAINING. Got that judges? We like being entertained. You clearly didn't because they got an unremarkable score, and I was worried they were going to end up in the dance off. Anyway, they lived to fight another day and my money is now on them and Rachel and Vincent for the final. I think I want Austin as he's shown the most consistency through the series, and while I like Tom I don't think he's quite as good as Austin. Mind you having said that in the group dance Tom and Austin both shone and the girls just looked limp and decorative - but I think that's probably the fault of Arlene's choreography. Is it just me or do you think there is something pervy about the way she leches after younger men - can you imagine the furore of Len did that to Rachel? (Can you tell I have really really gone off Arlene?)

Finally of course we got to say goodbye to John, which was touching and sweet, and I so love Kristina who is charming and beautiful and has a wicked sense of humour and deserves a really great dancing partner next year. But boy oh boy, did you notice how po faced Arlene looked? And the judges were the only ones who didn't stand up. Miserable so and sos. I was in hysterics when John thanked them for their help in allowing him to stay in the competition - Arlene's face was a picture. In case you missed it, I leave it here for your delectation and delight. Strictly is just not going to be the same without them.

Strictly Crap

2008-11-20T06:28:00.000-08:00

I don't normally watch It Takes Two given that it's on when I'm either hoiking children round town to various activities or cooking their tea. But last night I wanted to see what John and Kristina had to say, so I left the dinner cooking and sat down (in between settling disputes between the ten/six year olds and filling in the husband on what had happened when he came in) to watch.

I really wanted to know what persuaded John to step down - my gut instinct says he's not the type to be bullied. It seemed clear to me from watching last night, that he had just got fed up with the media storm, which had taken the fun out of if for him.(Caused in no small part it has to be said by the likes of Arlene who was told Breakfast News on Monday that "When [other celebrities] put hours in the practice studio they are constantly working. They do not sit down, and I know with John, he sits and reads the Guardian. A lot of time he and his dance partner spend fooling around." , and was busy telling Jeremy Vine on Monday lunchtime John shouldn't still be in the competition.)

It strikes me that as well as being a perfect gent, John Sergeant is fundamentally also a very kind person, and it clearly bothered him that other people were getting stressed by the whole thing, and that he was uncomfortable to have got through on Saturday when Cherie didn't. I suspect that too, had something to do with his decision.

However, while I'm not sure about the whole bullying thing, I do agree with Marie, that facing a choice between people being rotten to you and going on a cruise, most of us would opt for the latter. And judging by the incredible bitchiness James (and to a lesser extent Anton and Kate Garroway) displayed when interviewed after him, I don't blame him. James was full of venom, spitting out malevolently that this "wasn't the John Sergeant show" - no, and I don't think for one moment John Sergeant thought it was either. Unlike James, he clearly has no ego to speak of, and was diplomatically getting out of the way so that other better dancers don't get voted off this week and he has to face the whole barrage of criticism again. I think sometimes the story gets too big for the person (I'm thinking here not just of the recent Brand/Ross nonsense, but also the whole Angus Deayton debacle a few years ago) - and John Sergeant recognising this decided to get out while the going was good. He's done so, as he's done everything in this show, with gravitas, dignity, and not inconsiderable wit. I love him more then ever (and can't wait to do the rewrites to my Christmas book so I can polish up my character into proper John Sergeant twinkly lines).

Everyone else (with exception of Claudia Winkelman who was flounderingly trying to get her interviewees to be more positive, and Brucie who just looked confused) who appeared on It Takes Two last night looked small minded, mean spirited and downright pathetic in comparison. For Arlene to say that she was "sad" he'd left and he should have stayed, and for Craig to call him a coward was breathtakingly hypocritical. I believed Len the most, even though he was pictured on Saturday moaning about the result.

And let's not forget that Len and Arlene the two oldest judges in the competition have been outrageously rude about John Sergeant's age. We all know it's a competition where the young and beautiful have more hope of winning. This time around John Sergeant gave all the dad dancers hope and Cherie Lunghi had been striking a blow for the older woman (ironic that my favourite older man was responsible for knocking my favourite older woman out), but to hear Len and Arlene go on about John's age you'd think he was practically senile. It's been nasty, obnoxious and makes the idea of having older competitors in this pointless. Why not just say next year, anyone under the age of 35 is banned? You'll have a bland show, but then you won't get to be embarrassed by watching geriatric shuffling either.

I'm not yet sure whether I want to carry on watching this year's SCD. Ironically I thought last week produced the best dancing yet, but I don't want to watch great dancing without seeing John Sergeant's cheeky little face cheering me up every week. I'd have accepted him going out in a vote and the judges getting rid of him in the dance off. But this is the worst of all possible worlds.

And the only one who's come out of it with any dignity is John Sergeant. I hope when he's back from his cruise, he'll also be back on our screens in some other amusing capacity soon.

The nation, deserves a bit of gaiety and it looks like we're not going to get it from SCD anymore.

OTOH, as Marie suggested maybe we should all go for Jodie For The Win. Get phoning peeps!

Oh even MORE crap

2008-11-19T05:36:00.000-08:00

So John Sergeant has been pushed out of Strictly for being too old, too rubbish and winning the public's hearts. I appreciate what he's said about it, but bugger it. I think the public should have got to decide who they wanted for the final and the judges should have shut up. Arlene Phillips has been foul this week and I've lost huge amounts of respect for her.

Marie has said it all much better then I can here , but while I sit here steaming, I leave you with my favourite John Sergeant moment of the series.

Who's going next do you think? Cos Jodie sure as hell won't be able to jive but the public love her too...

Oh crap

2008-11-17T00:44:00.000-08:00

I missed last night's dance off because I was out, but I cannot believe Cherie has been voted off and John is still in. There is no justice in the world.

There is however, as John sweetly pointed out on Saturday, the power of the electorate...

Sudden Thought...

2008-11-16T03:50:00.000-08:00

It has just occurred to me that the reason the judges were so nice to John Sergeant last night was because they were still in shock after watching Terry Wogan dance...

How exciting was that?

2008-11-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

Well knock me down with a feather. Everyone (even John Sergeant) raised their game this week.

First up was Jodie and Ian with a wonderful quickstep - she was light and fleet and graceful. I was so pleased for her after last week's dreadful samba. This was definitely her best dance of the series, but as she clearly is never going to get Latin my money's on her going next time she's got to do a latin dance.

Then it was Lisa and Brendan (Lisa resplendent in the weirdest orange dress I've ever seen - but much loved by my eldest daughter who adores all things orange) doing a not desperately exciting samba. I thought she looked stiff and awkward and lacked hip movement, but the judges seemed to like it, and only Bruno mentioned the hips.

Then Christine and Matthew danced a waltz, and whoopeedodah, I actually liked it. I thought it was charming and graceful and rather lovely. Maybe she's not boring after all. Perhaps she is just very very nice and therefore the waltz is her dance. I;d say that was her best dance of the competition also.

Cherie and James then danced a cha cha cha (or is it cha cha?)and while this wasn't her best dance of the series, it was definitely her best latin attempt, though I'd be inclined to agree with the judges she does it a little too neatly. Somehow at the moment her latin lacks fire in its belly, but I hope she's done enough to keep her in as I still want to see her in the final.

Austin and Erin's tango was the dance of the night for me - I thought it was superb, and I think having been rather dismissive of Austin I'm finally getting his appeal now. I loved the bit when they showed him going into his daughter's school. Wonderful.

I actually also really liked Rachel and Vincent's rumba which seemed rather more tender then sensual in a way. Not sure I agreed with all those tens but she can't possibly be in the dance off this week can she?

Then it was John and Kristina who were abysmal as usual (though not as bad as last week) and made me laugh as usual. It really is time that he went though, so I do hope he's voted off tonight while people still like him. (Mind you the children are adamant he should stay as they prefer the entertainment value to the dancing...) I loved the way they scooted off upstairs without waiting to hear what the judges had to say. But they were pleasantly surprised by the judges being NICE to them - Arlene even went so far as to say she got why the public like him (which may actually have been calculated to get the public voting him off, who know?) So, if he does go out this week at least he'll go out on a high...

Last but not least was Tom and Camilla. I loved their salsa which was steamy and hot and such a lot of fun. It made me want to get up and bop along with them, and even had the effect of my dance shy husband admitting that maybe he would give it a go (little does HE know what I'm planning to give him for Christmas...)

My money is on Lisa and John being in the dance off, but you never know how the public will vote so it will probably be Tom and Rachel.

And in the meantime, if you missed Children in Need on Friday, here's Terry Wogan showing that actually, John Sergeant isn't half bad...

Are they human or are they dancers?

2008-11-14T00:59:00.001-08:00

Today is Children in Need Day and Tess Daly and Terry Wogan are going to go head to head in a Strictly Come Dancing bonanza. Judging by this, Sir Tel is every bit as bad (if not worse) then John Sergeant, so it should be hilarious, and of course it's all in a great cause. So if you haven't donated yet, what are you waiting for???

Strictly Too Serious...

2008-11-12T00:50:00.000-08:00

I know. I know. I said on Sunday he can't dance and it really is time he went, but I think the judges are getting a bit over excited about things. This is a DANCE competition, yes, but it's not as if anyone on it is really going to get crowned Champion at the World Ballroom Dancing competition is it (unless he's called Anton du Beke, and he did it dancing with, oh yes, a fellow professional...)? Half the fun of Strictly is watching the judges squirm as the public stubbornly and persistently vote the opposite way, and I agree with Alice over at Strictly TV, they should have learnt by now that moaning about it is only going to make things worse. (Have just found two Keep John Sergeant In groups on Facebook where people seem really quite riled that the judges are daring to presume to tell them how to vote.) Mind you, perhaps it's all a big plot and the judges say these things to ensure the public votes the wrong way and therefore interest is kept in the competition.

But all in all I think it's just getting a tad silly. And I know he or Jodie should really go now, being the worst two dancers in the competition as that would be fair (but since when was life fair, hmmm?), but it is hard not to be entertained by someone who makes a virtue out of being so bad in such a disarming manner. Here's his dance from Saturday again. I defy you not to smile....

Oh dear. Oh dear

2008-11-10T01:28:00.000-08:00

I think that's what you call a travesty.

I missed Saturday's show because we had far too many children running around in the back garden in the rain and wind while my husband manfully tried to light soggy fireworks, but I caught up via the SCD website and Marie's blog.

The dances I loved were Tom's (hilarious hilarious but so fleet of foot), Cherie's (way to go Cherie, but you need to crack Latin if you're going to get into the final), surprisingly Lisa's as I haven't been that fond of her up until now, and Rachel's.

Heather's tango was by far the best dance she's done all series, and Christine's jive was just ... dull. I cannot understand at all Christine's appeal. I can only imagine she has a lot of fans on The One Show (which I have never ever watched so don't get at all why she's so popular).

My two personal favourites in the competition John and Jodie were both rubbish this week (although John just makes me laugh out loud, the way he hams up his crap dancing), and I have to reluctantly concede that it isn't actually fair any more if either of them stay in because they can't really dance and all the others (including boring Christine) can.

So I was convinced the dance off was going to be between those two and that John would be kicked off because you can just SEE the judges are desperate to get rid of him (1 from Craig for entertainment? C'me on I get the 1 for the lack of dancing ability but John certainly entertains, if not necessarily for the right reasons).

But then blow me down with a feather the great British Public voted (if ever there was a reason for not giving the masses the vote its watching how they behave on competitions like this) so Heather and Brian were in the dance off with ... Rachel and Vincent. Neither of them deserved to be there, though Rachel is definitely the best dancer so the best woman won, but still...

Any more of this and I might have to boycott the programme.

Surely next week we have to see John in the dance off? Much as I love him it is time for him to go. (Besides I've finished the book on which I've modelled his character, so I don't need him anymore...)

But with the great BP in control of the voting, who can tell what the outcome will be? We'll probably end up with Austin and Tom in the dance off when really they should be both be twinkling their way to the final...

Halfway House

2008-11-03T02:31:00.000-08:00

So we're at the halfway point in Strictly and the competition is certainly hotting up.

I much preferred this week's episode, which felt a lot more fun then last week's.

I loved Jodie's waltz. Really lovely, even if she was dressed as Cinderella (she reminded me of the people who dress up in Disneyland. Odd to do that when you're not four). She definitely does better in the ballroom dances as she's so graceful, but though I do do love her, I can't see her making the final three. She's working hard at it, but I wouldn't say she has much natural talent.

Christina looked lovely, and was tremendously graceful, but I still find her a bit of a nonentity personality and dancing wise. I'm sure she'll be in a dance off soon.

Lisa and Brendan's tango was great. I love the tango, so stylish and sexy, and I think they pulled it off. Lisa has improved hugely. I'm still not convinced she's going to be in the top three, but she's biting at the heels of Cherie and Rachel in a way I wouldn't have predicted a few weeks ago.

Cherie's salsa was sadly disastrous. I was hugely relieved she didn't end up in the dance off, as I feared she might. Hopefully, she'll get a dance more suited to her again. I still want her in the final, but am coming to the conclusion she won't win because she can't do the latin dances.

Heather was also a disaster, which was a shame after last week. And she always looks so much better in training. Though she survived this week, I can't see her getting through next time (except if she has to dance against John Sergeant, whom the judges are no doubt going to vote off without even watching him.)

John was as ever hilarious to watch. I still love him to pieces, but it is getting to the stage in the competition when he is going to have to go because the only people remaining are the people who can dance, so it wouldn't be fair to keep him (even for my research purposes).

I missed Tom's cape action, and Rachel's jive, but I think both are still demonstrating they are top contenders. Have a feeling if Cherie has another slip up Rachel will bag that place in the final.

Austin and Erin were simply the best this week. I think they are the clear front runners. Everyone else has a lot of catching up to do.

Which just leaves Andrew. Finally, finally. He got voted off. And rightly too. We were in stitches watching him dance, those hand movements. That bottom sticking out like a pregnant duck (though I suppose it kind of matched Ola's weird flamingo costume). But, he was utterly charming in defeat, and I thought his thank you speech was lovely and well meant. So hurrah for Andrew. (And also hurrah for not crying. Am getting very fed up with seeing people crying on TV, particularly men).

I predict Heather and John will be in next week's dance off, with John to go, and Christina and Jodie to be following soon. I'd still really love Jodie to suddenly develop into a dancing queen, but I can't quite see it not really. (She has given me an idea for a character for my next book though. I had no idea when I started watching Strictly what a good research tool it was going to be.)

The results show was as weird as ever apart from Anton and Flavia's hilarious dance. I thought that was brilliant, and made me wish I'd had more time learning from the master...

Freckles and bullfights.

2008-10-26T03:47:00.000-07:00

Last night watching Strictly Come Dancing was a hugely educational experience. I learnt that Paso Doble (which is a dance I've managed to miss seeing before somehow) is about bull fighting and to dance the Viennese Waltz properly you apparently need freckles...

It was also quite hard work watching it in our house as the eight year old had a friend for a sleepover, so whereas normally it's just the six year old squealing her way through SCD, last night we had three small girls screeching their heads off. So if I've badly misinterpreted all the dancing you'll have to forgive me...

I decided watching Lisa and Brendan I could really get into the Paso Doble. I totally "get" that dance is also about story, and you could do a great story with that. I did like their dance, but wasn't totally wowed by it, although overall they probably made the best fist of it.

Cherie and James had their worst score, because Cherie unfortunately tripped at the beginning and was so put off she forgot to act the story. I kind of agreed with Arlene that it would have been great to see her do it again. Am sure if she hadn't tripped it would have been the best one of the night. (Though what DID they give her to wear? I liked the swirling skirt, but not in gold...)

Mark Foster (thankfully minus the seethrough top), probably did his best dance so far. He's trying so hard, poor love. It's just a shame he was so completely out of time the music stopped before he did. I was in hysterics with Arlene's puzzled bewilderment about how he must be in time in swimming but can't seem to get it in dancing. (I swim a bit, and I can completely see that the rhythm you get into for swimming is a totally different thing - like he says you're going one way, and it doesn't matter how you look!).

Christine's dancing is always enthusiastic, but somehow unmemorable. This was so unmemorable I had to think quite hard to remember if she'd done Paso Doble or Viennese Waltz. Oh dear.

As usual I loved Jodie, even though the judges didn't. It probably wasn't as good as last week's, but there's something about Jodie which I just find irresistible (it is probably because, judging by my five minutes with Anton, I would be just as useless as her if I were doing it.)

The funniest though, had to be John Sergeant's. It's becoming more and more clear that he can't dance at all, but I just love the interpretations he puts on things. He was just hilarious stamping his little feet and trying to look serious. And I loved his comment about being in the position of the favourite runner up in a bye election. I do hope he's still in next week...

The waltzes were better, I thought. Even Andrew Castle didn't do too badly - and thanks to Ola having had him strapped to her waist all week (how DO these dancers manage to keep a straight face when they do things like that?) his bum didn't even stick out. But PLEASE Great British Public, it's time he went. He can't dance for toffee.

I loved loved Heather's waltz. All the way through this we've watched Heather sing and thought, there's a show woman, but she hasn't seemed to be able to translate it to the dance floor. And last night she did, in a dress, which my ten year old pronounced a perfect princess dress (it was very pink). I really really hope she's saved the dance off this week.

Austin and Orla were predictably good, but I didn't think they quite deserved the nines they got.

Rachel and Vincent's waltz was charming if a little unexciting. Rachel also got a great dress (but very very weird gloves).

The hero for me this week had to be Tom though. I didn't think there was anyone to fancy on SCD this year, but I have changed my mind. Tom is utterly my new hero and I don't even watch Holby. He was soooo sweet talking about his wife (who must be very very longsuffering to put up with Camilla on her honeymoon) and then danced a lovely romantic waltz and dedicated it to her. Ah bless... For me it was the dance of the night, and I think I may have a problem now choosing between him and Cherie.

And as a measure of how much more relaxing it is to dance in your own lounge after a glass of red, then in a huge loft surrounded by strangers, I boogied round the lounge with the two big girls for hours... IF only I could have been that relaxed on Thursday....

Dancing with the Stars

2008-10-24T01:19:00.000-07:00

Well, one, specifically...

Several weeks ago I was interviewed for the Express about my experiences learning to dance (such as they are). As I'd talked about dancing in the kitchen with my husband (actually I do it without my husband too - Friday nights usually finds me boogying to Chris Evans' All Request Friday, it's a great stress buster I can tell you), they were going to send a photographer down to take a picture of me in the kitchen complete with pinny and marigolds.

I'm very glad they didn't.

Last week I got a phone call asking me if I'd like to come up to London for a photoshoot. Would I ever? When the most exciting thing that generally happens to me in the week is the Sainbsbury's shop, I didn't need much persuading. Particularly when I found out that I was going to get a makeover, have my hair styled and wear some fabulous dresses. No girl could say no to that...

And even if I was mad enough to turn such a fabulous opportunity down, when they told me I was going to be photographed with Anton du Beke, you could have heard me squeeing from here to Timbuctu. I didn't stop giggling for a week.

I was however very nervous. I've never done anything like this before, though I have done a fair few radio interviews, which I quite enjoy because NO ONE CAN SEE YOU.

I realise I should have taken my own mantra from the book and just pretended no one was looking but it was quite strange to go from the normal domestic routine to joining the commuter crowd (which I haven't done for years) and end up in a lofty studio close to London Bridge surrounded by people measuring me up like a kind of prize cow.

As I was the first to arrive (I was being photographed with a wonderful lady who also happens to be the receptionist at my publishers and a fabulous dancer who gave me lots of great info for the book), the lovely make up girl started doing my make up. I was suddenly terribly self conscious about my hair which needs a damn good cut, but somehow in my busy life I haven't found time for that recently. However she did a great job of making it look curly and natural, and I wish I knew what she'd done as I've decided this is a Look I must keep forever. Apart from anything else she made me look twenty again, which is no mean feat...

I also (shamefully at the great age of 43) had my eyebrows plucked and my lashes curled for the first time ever. But probably not the last now (I realise in my middle age I have inherited my father's bushy eyebrows. NOT a good look.)

While I was being made up Anton arrived. He was charm itself, introducing himself to us straight away and promptly chiming in with comments about what we were going to be wearing. He sat down next to me and once he'd found out I'd written a book was polite enough to appear to want to know what it was about. He also read out his own hilarious interpretation of the story (wasted as a dancer, that man I tell you), before pointing out that (ouch!) in the beautiful picture of the couple dancing on the front the man's arm is in the wrong position. I should have known that, but didn't even think about it when I saw the cover as it is soooo beautiful. So to all you dancing fans out there who've noticed, mea culpa. Should have spotted that one!

I then went to try dresses on while everyone else got made up, which was fantastic quite frankly. I tried on two lovely turquoise dresses (one strapless one made me feel like a million dollars but I didn't get to wear it in the end because it didn't have a swirly enough skirt), a purple dress I wasn't so keen on and a fantastic red dress from John Lewis which I absolutely HAVE to own...

By now Anton was dancing with my friend. I watched in envy as they made it look so easy, and in fact their photos together are going to be amazing as she was natural and funny, and gorgeous.

I on the other hand felt like a total dork. The photographer kept trying to get me to relax, but I think the first pictures he took just showed me looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights. He kept telling me not to look so scared, but I was absolutely terrified. Anton like the true pro he is made me laugh by taking the piss out of my inhibitions. Well frankly, I was waaaaaayyyy out of my comfort zone (telling me to put my hand on a man who isn't my husband's thigh in the middle of the morning was slightly disconcerting to say the least). At the risk of sounding like a total alcy I could have really really used a drink at that point.

More disconcerting for poor Anton probably was the number of times I trod on his toes, but he seemed to cope with it manfully. In the space of half an hour I had the experience of simultaneously being Katie (who is supremely unconfident at the start of the book) and Emily (who steps on toes all the time). Oh dear. That wasn't how my vision of the day went...

Luckily it did get better, and after discovering that to make the muscles in your face relax you have to blow your cheeks out, I ended up giggling my way through the rest of the shoot. But jeez it's hard. My chin always seemed to be in the wrong place, or I wasn't looking at the camera, or my shoulders were out. Who'd be a model, hey? Not me, that's for sure. (Not that anyone would be asking me ever, after yesterday's performance!)

I would have LOVED to have had the opportunity to get a proper dancing lesson from Anton, because he was quite brilliant at choreographing the photo so we got the right poses, and it was enormous fun. I suspect he wouldn't like me all that much as a pupil though, thanks to the stepping on toes thing, though he was kind enough to say at one point that I had shown a smidgeon of natural ability.

The session ended all too quickly, Anton keeping up his very witty repartee till the very last moment.

And then it was back home on the train, to sort out the kids' stuff for their tennis lessons, and then go and stand in a windy playground which played havoc with my wonderful hairstyle.

At one point Anton was teasing me that I probably spent my life in jeans and teeshirts - well er yes. Much as I love to dress up, that gorgeous red dress, and those lovely red shoes wouldn't be at all practical in the playground...

You can see the results of my day in the Express on Monday, but I hope to get some pictures up here at some point if allowed.

In the meantime, as Tess and Brucie would say, Keep Dancing!

Strictly the Best

2008-10-20T02:06:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately I was away for the weekend (again - I know, I know. It's a wild life I lead), so missed Saturday's show.

However, I read Marie's brilliant round up here, so I didn't feel I'd missed too much. And I did go and look at the dances online to get back up to speed.

I think my favourite dances this week were Tom and Camilla's American Smooth which just glided across the floor and Rachel and Vince's samba which was very energetc and raunchy. Tom and Camilla were fabulous. I think if I were his new wife, I might think that was worth having my wedding postponed for, so long as he danced with me like that. I also really liked Jodie who IS graceful and not at all storklike when she's doing ballroom. I was sooooo pleased she didn't end up in the dance off again. I watched the results show with the ten and twelve year olds and the ten year old and I whooped like crazy people when she was saved. (The twelve year old is far too dignified to act like a crazy person). We whooped even more when John and Kristina were saved. I love John. He is like a great cuddly bear, and he is so so charming. He didn't dance at all on Saturday, but carried it off with such aplomb.

I was very sorry to see Heather and Don in the dance off, as I thought that spot should have gone to Andrew Castle (who is dreadful, but clearly has a lot of support from GMTV viewers) and Mark Foster who's samba was nearly as astonishing as Gary Rhodes' first effort.

I think Heather did have the slight edge, so Don probably should have gone (mainly for pulling such terrible faces when he danced), but will miss those velvet tones. Now if he could only dance the way he speaks...

The competition is definitely hotting up now. Cherie, Austin, Mark and Rachel are all in with a chance I'd say, and Christine and Lisa were much better this week. I just find them a bit bland (and Rachel too, if I'm honest).

If it was on character alone, I'd be saying John or Jodie FTW, and until they're knocked out, I'm still hoping...

Hurrah, Hurrah.

2008-10-15T11:58:00.001-07:00

Jodie's still in! And surely with the likes of Andrew Castle and Mark Foster about she's got a chance to stay for a little while longer... I did feel sorry for Jessie though.

In case you're interested, I have an interview up at Trashionista. You can read it
here

It's Ladies Night...

2008-10-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

Or rather it was, last night, but I got a bit distracted by The X Factor followed by 50 years of Blue Peter. It's all go in my house I tell you...

So this week it was the girls turn to show us what they're made of, and as with the boys, there are two clear leaders, who make the others look distinctly banal.

First up it was Christine and Matthew who performed an unremarkable quickstep, although Christine at least looked like she was having fun.

Then it was Jodie and Ian. I love Jodie. I think she's fab. But oh dear god was she out of her comfort zone. Not surprising really. Rumba to me is a dance you should do with someone you're very very intimate with. With anyone else it just looks pervy. Jodie was clearly trying to find her inner sensualist, but sadly, despite her best efforts she failed. Sadly, I think this means she's in the dance off again. Which is a shame because I think she is great fun and she tries so very very hard...

Then it was Heather and Brian. Great choreography, but Heather didn't exactly inspire. It all feels a little inspid I have to say. Mind you, it's easy for me to talk, just remembering those steps must be a nightmare, let alone putting some energy into it. But still, it didn't stand out, despite her best efforts.

Then it was Cherie and James. Once again Cherie pulled it out of the bag and delivered an AMAZING rumba. Amazing. Being an actress has got to help with getting into character and demonstrating the story of the dance, but that aside, she's graceful, she's fluid and a complete joy to watch. I also LOVE how driven and competitive she is. I really really want her to win because I think it would be a great boost for older women everywhere (and sadly I am beginning to include myself in that category). So hurrah for Cherie. Top that boys!

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Poor old Jessie Wallace. She looked completely out of her depth (again.) I must have been going bonkers to even consider her as a contender (which I briefly did from the first show). She seems to lack rhythm and plods around the stage like a carthorse, but she was clearly devastated by the judges' comments so maybe she'll get a sympathy vote. On the performance though, she should be in the dance off with Jodie. But we all know Strictly isn't always about how people perform otherwise Kate Garroway would have never been in it so long...

Then it was Lisa and Brenda with another rumba, and they made a pretty good fist of it. Lisa is definitely chasing third place among the ladies, and this was a huge improvement from last time, but not up to Cherie's standard.

And finally it was Rachel and Vincent. I loved this quickstep. I thought Rachel looked elegant and energetic. She moves beautifully and has great timing. Like Cherie she is incredibly focussed and driven and I think she's going to go a long way. Though the judges awarded this dance second place, I have to say I was a bit torn between her and Cherie, and I think I'd give this the slight edge. The public will probably end up voting for the young and beautiful so no doubt she will make it to the final along with Tom and Austin, but I think it will be close between her and Cherie. Very very close.

For the dance off, it should by rights be Jodie and Jessie, but the fickleness of the British public is renowned (never is the argument against the people having the vote more amply demonstrated then by their responses to TV competitions), so who's to say who'll end up there. If Jessie gets the sympathy vote, it will probably be Heather or Christine with Jodie, and sadly I think we'll be saying goodbye to her.

Though I do hope not.

Strictly Love Competition

2008-10-08T04:56:00.000-07:00

I have been immensely neglectful and ommitted to mention that the competition winners have been posted on Rob's blog

http://www.the-word-is-not-enough.com/blog/rob/2008/10/strictly_love_competition_winners.php

My thanks to all who entered and to Rob for kindly hosting it.

Still playing catch up....

2008-10-06T00:29:00.001-07:00

From my weekend away (for more of which, see the other blog), but I did manage to see the dance off last night. Gosh they pad that programme out, it could all be over in half an hour.

Still it did allow me an opportunity to glimpse the extraordinary headbanging tango of Andrew and Ola of which I had heard tell on Marie's blog, and from the little I saw of John Sergeant's I am more in love then ever. John Sergeant for the final. The campaign starts now...

Gary was awful. So was Mark Foster - must be something to do with being tall but he and Andrew Castle were both so stiff.

Don was fabulous this week though, which I'm quite pleased about as I do love to hear him speak, and it was nice to see he can also dance.

Without a doubt the two best boys are Austin and Mark, who jived their way comfortable to the top of the leader board. My money is on Austin for the final though (if by any chance John doesn't get there)- I think he has the slight edge.

I watched the girls group dance and apart from seeing Jodie bobbing about like an ungainly stork again (I think the more graceful dances are going to be her thing) and Jessie looking desperately ungainly, I couldn't really make head or tail of who was doing what, though Cherie stood out. I'd love to see her in the final too, but it'll probably be the youngsters.

Looking forward to next week, and on last night's showing would predict Jessie and Jodie for the dance off. Though I rather hope Jodie lives to fight another day...

Let's Hear it for the Boys

2008-10-03T12:35:00.001-07:00

Unfortunately I am going to be away for the weekend so will be missing my weekly dancing fix. On the plus side, here's the reason.

Although to be completely honest... I'm seeing the divine Mr Tennant in Love's Labour's Lost, I'm going to have to wait for December for Hamlet.

Having briefly watched the boys practising on It Takes Two, my money is on either him...
or him going

From the little I observed it is a toss up as to who is the most stiff and least natural dancer. Although I'd say Mark Foster was running a close third.

My eldest daughter was in convulsions about the fact that Craig kept mentioning how Andrew's bottom was sticking out. And once he'd pointed it out, it was hard not to agree.

I missed seeing John Sergeant, whom I presume is going to tango. I do hope so as I think he will be loads better then wet fish Mark.

However, I did think the little glimpse of Philip I mean Don looked alot better, Mark looked hot to trot comme toujours, and as for Austin. Well blow me down with a feather. On the strength of that jive I'd put him in the final. He was amazing. It'll be fascinating to see if he keeps it up.

I've also discovered an even more burning reason to go on Strictly Come Dancing. Apparently Austin's lost two stone. TWO stone. I could do with some of that...

Strictly Love Competition!

2008-10-02T05:49:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of entries for the Strictly Love Competition, so don't forget to enter!

You've got to be in it, to win it!

Details are here

Welcome to the party...

2008-09-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

Thanks for dropping by and celebrating the launch of Strictly Love with me.

And to get you in the mood here are the incomparable Fred and Ginger dancing to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. To dance like that...sigh. Well I guess we can all dream.

Of course it being Saturday, it's Strictly Come Dancing night. Hurrah!

So while you're here let me know who tops your poll as the most likely candidate to lift that trophy this year. Judging by last week, it's unlikely to be a girl I'd say...

You can also share your most romantic dancing moment, play an SCD Wed em, Bed em and Dead em special, AND you still have time to enter the competition over on Medium Rob's blog.

And if that isn't enough do pop over to Marie's hilarious blog to read her take on this week's SCD action. I guarantee it will bring a smile to your face.

So get on your glad rags, put on your dancing shoes, and take to the floor!

Don't forget...

2008-09-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

Don't forget, Rob's fabulous dancing competition. To win copies of Strictly Love

More details here.

So dance on over there and enter right now!

Save the Last Dance for me...

2008-09-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Dancing of course is a really romantic thing. My couples all get together on the dance floor. Absurdly it wasn't till I was asked the question for a magazine interview I've just done, that it occurred to me thatthe reason my husband and I are together is because he literally did ask me for the last dance. Well actually the last two to be precise. It was March 15th 1984, and we were at a Rathbone Hall disco at Liverpool University. We were standing chatting, and one of his friends was poking him in the back saying Go on, ask her to dance. Needless to say, I was totally oblivious till he did. And the rest as they say is history.

I can't remember the order we danced them in, but I will remember which two songs we danced to till my dying day. The first is by Cars. And it's Drive You Home Tonight (well he walked me back to my room does that count?)

The second is Do You Know What Love Is by Foreigner. Corny and all as it is, I still get a little shiver every time I hear it. And I didn't really know. Not then at any rate...

Since then we've danced to many things on many occasions, but the song we've come to claim as our own is You Really Got Me by the Kinks. And this version of it has even more meaning cos we were actually there. And we did dance. And it was fab.

So what I want to know is what's your most romantic dancing experience and why...

Who knows I may pinch it for the next book....

So it's cards on the table time...

2008-09-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Ok Folks, so who didn't trip the light fantastic? Which zedlebrity won't be dancing back on our screens next week? And while your about it, who do we fancy for the final? Or is it just to early to tell?

In no particular order, will it be....

Rachel and Vincent

Lisa and Brendan

Jodie and Ian

Jessie and Darren

James and Cherie

Heather and Brian

Gillian and Anton

Christine and Matt

Answers on a postcard please.

Or preferably post them here....

Wed 'em, bed 'em or dead 'em. A Strictly Come Dancing Bonanza

2008-09-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

As I'm a bit short of time this week, I give for your delight and delectation, the boys... Or well some of them at any rate...

First off - what was he doing last week? Cooking a dance? Dancing a meal? Not really doing a Cha Cha Cha anyway...

It's that lovely chef, Gary Rhodes....

Second up - the man who can't dance to save his life,but looks like he might die trying - Don Warrington. Who probably wishes he could dance the way he speaks. And here he is in his previous incarnation as Philip, included because he was much better at that then he is at dancing.

And finally. It's Mr Cuddly Teddy Bear. The man who first charmed us by asking Mrs Thatcher that awkward question, and now swept us off our feet with that lovely waltz. Mr John Sergeant.

So who's it going to be folks? Don, Gary or John? You get to wed, bed or dead one or possibly all three. The choice my friends is yours...

Competition time!!!

2008-09-22T06:05:00.000-07:00

Thanks to lovely Medium Rob I am happy to announce that you can win copies of Strictly Love by entering his competition.

More details here.

So dance on over there and enter right now!

And cos I loved it so much...

2008-09-22T02:37:00.000-07:00

Here is John and Kristina's waltz.

One, two, three, say aaaaahhhhh....

So it's back...

2008-09-22T02:01:00.000-07:00

... bigger and better then ever, etc, etc.

I have to fess up here and say I am not a veteran SCD watcher, having only really got into it last season when I was researching Strictly Love, so my point of reference isn't huge in terms of how much bigger and better it actually is. I'd say they're going to be hard pushed to top Alesha, but then having seen Mark Ramprakash dance (I missed the year he won) I suppose it probably seemed hard to top him too.

To begin with on Saturday, I felt the whole thing lacked the sparkle and enthusiasm we've come to expect. Brucie's jokes fell as flat as a pancake (ok I have never been a Brucie fan, though I do think it is fantastic that an 8o something is fronting such a popular show, but crikey he was working hard for not a lot of return), the audience seemed lack lustre, and the judges were working overtime to use the most ridiculous metaphors/similes they could (well, ok maybe they always do that).

I managed to miss the first two dances as I was on rabbit and guinea pig cleaning duties (or rather I let the kids off finishing cleaning the pets so they wouldn't miss the beginning). I think I am probably very grateful to have missed Phil Daniel's dance judging by his stiffness in the Dance Off last night - he looked like a constipated turtle. Tom wotsit who is the cute one from Holby City was thoroughly demasculated by a horrible green shirt as far as I could tell (the children think alot of the contestants must have really upset someone in the costume department. It is hard not to disagree with this.), but I have no idea what his dancing is like.

Then it was dear old Don Warrington, who has the disadvantage of age, carrying excess weight and er, the fact that he can't actually do it against him. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, although I think Arlene was right that when he relaxed there was a sense that he could have been better.

So far so absolutely dire, then luckily Austin Healey came on and did a waltz, which was a bit of a revelation as he could actually dance. I'm clearly not an expert, but I didn't think it was THAT good to deserve Len's 9. Maybe he was suffering from it's-all-crap-so-anything-halfway-decent-looks-exceptional fatigue (anyone who has ever judged a writing competition will recognise this syndrome. The standard is so dire you are losing the will to live. Something turns up which catches your attention and you think you've discovered Dickens. You then realise when you go back to it you've actually got a rather poor Jeffrey Archer. I suspect Len was having a dance judge equivalent moment).

Both Gary Rhodes and Andrew Castle unwittingly supplied huge amounts of entertainment with their absolutely dire Cha Chas. They appear to have been taking lessons in how to be windmills. Maybe they're going green. It looked very odd is all I can say. And I fail to understand how Arlene could detect Andrew Castle could dance as we couldn't actually see him as he was completely obliterated by Orla and her astonishing Barbarella outfit.

Mark Foster did a passable but dull waltz. He really is a wet fish, and unless he cracks the performance side, I think his chances of reaching the final to sport his swimming trunks are probably about zero. Although of course, the fact that he is such a hunk will probably see him a very very long way.

I'm saving the best till last.

I now really really REALLY want to see John Sergeant in the final. He probably won't get there because he's too old to manage the faster dances, but his waltz was just fabulous. It was charming and romantic and old fashioned, and suddenly the older character I am writing in my latest book has metamorphosed into John Sergeant because he is so lovely and self deprecating and wise. I also think it would be GREAT if someone could win it who hadn't started off as a dancer and wasn't young , thin and beautiful. But that is probably too much to hope for and I expect Rachel Stevens will win...

Couldn't quite work out what is going on with the girls, though my fellow SCD blogger Marie Philips thinks they're all heffalumps, but I'd still like to see Jodie Kidd hang around for a few weeks as she's good value and can't dance at all. She looked like a very gangly stork. And what on earth did they dress her in? She must have REALLY pissed off the costume department...

So next week we get to see the girlies dance - are they going to be as bad as they look or will one of them turn out to be an Alesha in the making? Only time will tell.

Oh and I think the right person got booted out last night - Don may be crap, but at least he looked like he was enjoying himself and got a bit more hip action in. But I suspect he'll be off next time. Unless Gary Rhodes really cocks it up...

Woohooo!!!

2008-09-18T11:53:00.001-07:00

Just had my first online feature published here.

http://www.allaboutyou.com/diet-wellbeing/strictly-ballroom-dancing/v1

Exciting or what?

So it's nearly back....

2008-09-18T04:53:00.000-07:00

Strictly Come Dancing is waltzing into our living rooms on Saturday and so they keep telling us it's bigger and better then ever.

There are sixteen couples this time around - SIXTEEN - I ask you. I keep forgetting who they all are (even if I did know in the first place).

However, I did enjoy watching them all meeting their partners and trying on costumes last Saturday, so I kind of think this could be quite fun.

First impressions are that Jessie Wallace is incredibly orange. Which doesn't go very well with the pink dress she chose. And why has she got a Cleopatra hair cut? Or maybe it's a wig...

Phil Daniels displayed a hitherto unremarked camp side by diving for a pink shirt that was way too small for him, while Mr Muscles Swimming Man (sorry forgotten his name - what can I say? We were on holiday and missed the most exciting Olympics ever) could well turn out to be the Cheesiest Contestant this year. All brawn and no... Well maybe that's unfair. At least he looked very pretty I suppose.

Which is more then I can really say for Andrew Castle - eek. What a smoothie. Hope his wife wasn't watching as he chatted up his dance partner.

Don Warrington also turned out to be a bit smoother then I'd have liked. I suspect he's a crap dancer too. But I do like listening to him talk. Sadly there isn't much of that on the dance floor.

Hmm. Who else is there? Gary Rhodes looks far too full of himself.The guy from Casualty is GORGEOUS, but must have a very long suffering fiancee - would YOU miss out on your honeymoon so your husband could dance on the telly with some fit bird?

There's a rugby player I've never heard of, but who at least looks like a laugh, and I am really hoping John Sergeant stays in at as long as possible because I think he's going to be great value. I particularly liked the fact he had persuaded his Russian partner that he was REALLY REALLY famous here...

As for the rest of the women. Well, apart from the Enders and Cherie Lunghi, I barely know any of them.

Heather wotsit looks like the best dancer by far, but I suspect she's going to be a huge diva.

~~Cathy Beale~~ - I mean Gillian Taylforth was very determined to prove what jolly good fun she is and how much of a good egg she is, and how she really really wants to put Cathy behind her and people to know her for being Gillian Taylforth, which makes you realise just why she put herself through the humiliation of THAT trial, because she clearly has no idea of the jokes that go around about her name. (Incidentally, when I was researching Strictly Love I watched a series of programmes about celebs who've made the mistake of going to court. Among many funny stories the Taylforth one still stands out as a real corker).

I missed the Cherie Lunghi bit, so have no idea if she can dance, Rachel Stevens probably can but did make the point that jiving about in front of a mike isn't quite the same thing, I have no idea who Christine Bleakley and Lisa Snowdon are, so haven't formed an opinion, but my favourite favourite woman has to be Jodie Kidd. She can't dance to save her life. Well that's how it looks at the moment. But she was so down to earth and NORMAL even though she is a super rich supermodel. I just loved the fact she was filmed feeding her horses with - horror of horrors - NO make up on.

Forget the dancing. I want to see Jodie and John in the final....

I Can't Get No Satisfaction...

2008-09-18T04:49:00.000-07:00

But I try. I really do...

It used to be the case that I danced around the kitchen to Chris Evans while I prepared the tea, but we are often out now at that time doing various activities, so it hasn't happened of late. (The experience also wormed its way in to Pastures New, where I had Amy headbanging when Ben came to call).

The children are also getting a little bit old to enjoy it. Of late when I dance to any music that comes on the radio, the twelve year old rolls her eyes and starts muttering about parents under her breath. I keep telling her it is my function in life to embarrass her as MUCH AS POSSIBLE, but somehow she doesn't seem so keen on this, I don't know why.

However, this morning the twelve year old had already gone to school, which means the ten year old reverts back down to her proper age instead of playing a teen wannabe and isn't so relentlessly determined to look down on her mother.

I was busy making sandwiches and I Can't Get No Satisfaction came on. That is a song that cries out to be danced to, whatever time of day or night it is. So dance I did. Much to the amusement of the children. They even joined in, jigging away at the breakfast table like something from some insane dance musical where everybody bursts into song and dance for no particular reason.

"Please stop, Mummy," the six year old said in the end gasping away like a dying guppy, "Or I'll choke on my porridge."

Well that would put a downer on the day and no mistake.

I stopped.

Which was a shame.And I still can't get no satisfaction in the dancing department, however hard I try...

Strictly Come Dancing Eat Your Heart Out!

2008-09-12T03:57:00.001-07:00

Here's a little taster of Strictly Love...

Cours de Dance

2008-09-12T00:36:00.001-07:00

Oh look, I said to my husband on our recent holiday, you can do dancing lessons here.

And indeed you could.

We sat one evening (after the circus debacle) watching a group of French people being taught how to dance.

Now I was tempted, I sorely was, but... it's hard enough to follow instructions in English let alone in French. All I could understand was something about your left pieds back and your right pied forward and then the instructor would bark, "Recules, Recules," which I think means go back because that's what everyone did.

The children were very keen (apart from the ten year old who was the only one who ditched ballet early) as at every available opportunity they put on the karaoke machine and work out dance routines. But when I pointed out the French problem, they demurred and agreed that perhaps it wouldn't be quite so easy.

During the first week of our holiday the entertainment (barring the circus) seemed fairly tame, but as the second week progressed it seemed that an aspiring DJ was in our midst, as every night we were listening to a mixture or rap and heavy metal (rather a strange combination it has to be said), which got later and louder as the week progressed. The kids were all desperate to go, but being as the disco seemed to start around 10pm we kept saying no. (Mind you we felt like pretty strict parents, because as far as we could tell everyone else stayed out all night with their offspring however late it got. What it is to be an uptight Northern European).

We'll go on the last night, I promised, as we'd twigged that the previous week the last night party had been fairly wild.

Except they changed the programme for our last night. I do speak French to a reasonable level, but not well enough to cope with the subtleties of things changing at the last minute. (I disastrously took us on a castle tour which I will be blogging about at the other place due to a slight misunderstanding. The kids still haven't forgiven me.)

It turned out that for the last night there was going to be a spectacle, but not in the outside bar area, but in a hall inside. Given that the kids' French is minimal we decided this would be a waste of time and sat outside and had a drink instead.

The only problem with this was the weather. Somehow (I don't know how, but I swear there is a big black cloud that follows us wherever we sojourn in Europe), we had managed to bring rain to the south of France. So we sat at a table which was luckily under a canopy and gloomily looked out at the rain. Though the bar staff had promised dancing later, we somehow doubted it would come to pass without the outside speakers creating a huge electric shock for anyone who went anywhere near them. We were sitting quite close and they were sparking intermittently and unnervingly...

At 10pm people poured out of the hall, the spectacle being over, but most of them voted with their feet and went to bed. Which was odd as the other times we'd looked earlier in the week the whole world and his wife seemed to be out, complete with children whatever age they were.

We were going to call it a day until eventually Madonna's La Isla Bonita started blaring from the speakers. At which point all the people who'd attended the cours de dance earlier in the week immediately leapt up and showed us all how to recule, recule, recule.

The eight year old was a picture. She couldn't stop her feet tapping but was utterly intimidated by the grown ups on the dance floor so stood making up a little routine of her own next to us, before disappearing to the play area in the pouring rain with the French friends she'd made.

The twelve and ten year olds had eschewed the play area as too childish, and I could see the oldest (who has been to dancing lessons since she was four) was desperate to get on the dance floor, but also far too self conscious. Eventually a huge group of teenagers got up to dance and the pair of them snuck off into the far corner, where no one could see what they were up to.

By now the music having gone over to cuban rumba stuff, had reverted to 80s rock, which was pleasing us grown ups no end. And when Billy Idol's White Wedding came on, I couldn't resist anymore, and neither to my amazement could Spouse. I may have mentioned before that he is a good mover when he gets going, but it takes a lot to get him going. The combination of enough beer, being on holiday and the fact that we were never ever going to see any of these people did the trick, and he kicked off his sandals and we took to the floor.

And it was so much fun. We danced our way through a selection of nostalgia before the DJ took us back to the Kings of Swing and Frank Sinatra. By now it was chucking it down with rain, we were drenched through (but luckily it was warm so we didn't care), the two oldest children were utterly mortified as we were the only ones left on the dance floor and we had a blast.

The little ones however had really had it, we had a long drive ahead of us the next day, so all too soon it was nearly for bed.

But we couldn't go before the last dance, which very appropriately was Singing (and dancing) in the Rain.

And so we did both.

Which was actually rather magical...

Strictly Newsflash!

2008-09-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

It won't have escaped the notice of readers of this blog I'm sure that the new series of Strictly Come Dancing is out in a couple of weeks. And here's a taster of who is in it this time. No I haven't heard of most of them either, but so long as some of them can dance who cares...

Coincidentally, I have a dancing related book coming out on 22 September, though you can buy it from 18 September. If you're really keen, you can get a special bind up version complete with free learn how to dance book at Tesco's, but otherwise you can purchase it in Asda's, Sainsbury's, Woolies, and Smiths. Online, I believe Amazon are already taking orders. So now you have no excuse. My publishers have done me proud and it is a thing of much beauty. Whether it is a good read or not, I leave entirely up to you. If you like romantic fiction, peppered with a little sardonic take on our celebrity obssessed culture then it should be up your alley, otherwise, you've only yourself to blame. If you do buy it and hate it, I am very sorry, but please don't rip it up as one disgruntled reader did last time. I can't abide waste, so if it really turns your stomach, do at least recycle it somewhere.

I am, of course, hoping that you don't hate it and send me flattering letters telling me how wonderful I am. This will give my husband the perfect excuse to keep me in my place and tell me to stop getting bigheaded, and I do like to keep him happy...

The Circus is Coming to Town

2008-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

I have I realise, been slightly quiet on both my blogs as since I got back from my hols my feet have barely touched the ground.I am going to be blogging about the holiday mainly at the other place, but there are a couple of particularly joyous things to share from our holiday experience.

The first is quite frankly one of the most bizarre things I've seen in my life.

We were staying in a holiday village type thing which had an outside bar and little stage area where we repaired occasionally in the evening. One night we arrived back from the beach to see signs promising Cirque parmi vous. I had seen signs in the town we were staying in featuring clowns, so I assumed it would be in town. We were therefore rather stunned to wake up the following morning and discover in a genuine circus parked outside the village. The circus evidently was going to be among us.

So with (it has to be said with not the highest of hopes, our last circus experience was at no 2's infant school and quite hilariously bad) we set off at about 8.30 to watch the circus.

To our astonishment they had set up a small ring in the centre of the stage area, and we were treated first of all to the amazing Pikkachu (how come its named after a Pokemon character? said my eldest. Quite frankly, who knows?), a small shetland pony whose party trick was jumping over a stick held out by the Chocolat the clown.

After that we were treated to some pretty good juggling (well anything had to be better then the last lot we saw) and a very funny turn by Chocolat, even if I was the only one who got the jokes, as it was all in French.

We also saw: a snake, two very frisky llamas who also had to jump over Chocolat's stick (lucky lucky Chocolat) and an even a camel, whose party piece was walking disdainfully round the ring and pooing as he went.

But the piece de resistance had to be the quite bonkers elderly couple who brought on their dancing dogs, who I kid you not were dressed up, and then got them dancing the can can. A more surreal sight I have yet to see in my life. If I can work out the technology of transferring the video we took and putting it on here I will share it with you.

The evening was brought short by a sudden downpour (probably just as well, the dancing dogs had finished me off), and in the morning we got up to discover the circus had vanished, as if it had never been. Perhaps the Pied Piper turned up and they danced away...

Dancing Queen (reprise)

2008-07-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

Well of course I went to see it again. Besides, I'd promised the kids...

The oldest one was the last to finish school, so as a treat last week, we went to see Mamma Mia! straight after she'd broken up.

And do you know what? I think it was even BETTER second time around. True I didn't laugh quite as much because I knew all the jokes (although Julie Walters still proved to be the funniest thing in it), but oh god that wow! joyous fun factor was even better the second time around.

And I forgot to say last time that I LOVED the stag night guys dancing in their flippers to Lay All Your Love on Me, and that Colin Firth's rendition of Our Last Summer was incredibly touching (and he can sing - well better then Pierce Brosnan at any rate).

It's also interesting watching a musical, which I have seen on stage twice being interpreted by non musical folk (although apparently Meryl Streep has a singing background). The dancing wasn't always very fluid - Meryl Streep's movements are sometimes a little stiff - and Pierce Brosnan tends to sing with a pained look on his face, but I think because they're actors they capture a lot of the pathos better then the stage actors do. Second time around I found Pierce and Meryl's duet of SOS really touching. While the scene with Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfreid singing Slipping Through her Fingers had me crying again (yes, yes, I know utterly wussy, but with four daughters I can see that moment really clearly.)

And of course, being as I write romantic fiction for a living, the ending was just great. Although the TRUE romantic hero of the film has got to be the greek islands of Skiathos and Skopelos where it was made. If EVER a film would make you want to go island hopping, this is the one...

I also made a mistake in my first post about Mamma Mia! in saying that the cast dance through the Greek village to the title song. They don't, they do it to Dancing Queen, and it is one of the many toetapping moments of the film, so I leave I give it you now for your delectation and delight. (And see if you can spot the Benny Anderson cameo...)

And if you HAVEN'T seen Mamma Mia! yet, what's stopping you?

Dancing Queen

2008-07-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

I have a confession to make. When I was fourteen, I hated Abba. Being more of a headbanging rock chick manque kind of girl, I just didn't get them at all. The suits. The corny lyrics. The whole shebang. My best friend at the time was a keen fan and insisted I was missing out. But nope. I wouldn't be convinced.

When I met my husband I discovered he was a closet Abba fan (well you had to be in those days, they just weren't cool). So much so he watched Abba the Movie, twice, sitting through the programme again. That's a tad obssessive I thought, but remained unmoved by his pleas that I couldn't see that they wrote really really great music.

It wasn't till the 90s, when I saw films like Muriel's Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert, that I suddenly saw the appeal. And making up for lost time went straight into full nostalgia fest and bought Abba Gold. It has been known for my husband and I to come back from a night out and dance to that album for hours. It has also been known for me to do Gimme Gimme a Man after Midnight on karaoke. But alcohol usually has to be involved for that...

Several years ago when I was still immersed in a world of small children and nappies and the chance for a night out in London was fairly slim, my niece persuaded me to see Mamma Mia! the musical with her. I have to confess I wasn't quite sure how they'd make a musical based on Abba songs, but from the moment they pushed the rowing boat on the stage and I realised it was called Waterloo, I knew I was going to enjoy myself. Which I did. I think that occasion was only the second time in my life that I'd danced in the aisles at the theatre, but NOT to dance would have been criminal really.

I saw it again a couple of years back, and it was just as much fun second time round.

So as soon as I realised that they'd made a film of it, I was determined to return the favour and drag my niece to the cinema.

And boy oh boy. Did it live up to expectations.

Meryl Streep is just brilliant as Donna, combining comedy and emotional fragility wonderfully. Julie Walters and Christine Baranski are hilarious as her best friends. Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth (as you have NEVER seen him before) and Stellan Skarsgad also entertain as the three possible dads for Donna's daughter Sophie. While Dominic Cooper (who is rather cute). and Amanda Seyfried who play Sky and Sophie are also really great as the young romantic leads.

What I think I enjoyed most about this though, was that for once we had a love story which features a middle aged couple - the older characters in this have infinitely more to say and do then the younger ones (much as I enjoyed their story too). It's so rare to see that from Hollywood, and I have to say I was nearly dancing in the aisles again when Julie Walters launched into Take a Chance on Me.

Mamma Mia! is fun light summer froth, with great music, and wonderful dancing. It reminded me just how wrong I was to think all those years ago that Abba were crap. They weren't. They wrote fantastic memorable songs, which hit the spot emotionally Meryl Streep's version of The Winner Takes it All was just heartrending, and Slipping Through my Fingers is not only on my soundtrack for Strictly Love, but has huge personal resonance for me as my oldest daughter grows up far faster then I'd like. Just as in the stage show, the film camps up the songs with hilarious results from Does your Mother Know? to a fantastically tenous Chitiquita. And the scene were all the Greek women come out of their houses to join Meryl and co dancing to Mamma Mia! is brilliant.

Mamma Mia! might not be to everyone's taste, but I loved every minute. In fact, I loved it so much, I might just have to go and see it again...

Music and Lyrics

2008-07-09T03:54:00.000-07:00

I've blogged about this before, but as I am feeling my way into the new book, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the way I use music when I'm writing. Plus sharing with you two of my current favourite songs.

It's been my experience, both when writing Strictly Love and it seems to be happening again now, that a character whom I wasn't expecting to have too much to do with has suddenly upped the ante and wants a much bigger part.

In Strictly Love that character is Rob, who starts the book as a serial commitment freak and who ends it... well I won't tell you how his story ends, you'll just have to read it and find out won't you...

But, when I started Strictly Love it was Mark's story I wanted to tell - he being the dentist hero who popped into my head first. Then I found my way to Katie, and then Emily. But Rob. Rob, was just supposed to be the happy-go-lucky best mate, who came along for the ride. Except he wouldn't let me do that to him. The more I wrote him, the more depths I found, which is a great experience for a writer.

I can't remember which way round it happened. Whether I heard this song on the radio first and had that YESSSSS!!! moment that told me this was HIS song, HIS theme..., or whether I started writing Rob and realised he needed a song all his own, doesn't really matter. At some point I found a song for Rob. And boy did it help me write his story.

The song in question is Feel by Robbie Williams and I share it with you now. I can't do a lot of clever high faluting music criticism because a) I am about as musical as a stone and b) I find a lot of music criticism quite pretentious.

But... for me, always when I'm drawing on songs, it's the depth of emotions that the song calls from me that helps me shape my stories and characters. And this song is so heart tugging and poignant, and makes me want to wrap poor little Robbie Wiliams up in my arms and say there, there (even THOUGH my head is saying, bad idea girl...), that is seems to sum up Rob's particular set of problems.

He starts the story as a bit of a jack the lad, a commitment phobe who enjoys women but who will never settle down. But behind the smile there is inevitably a great deal of pain. I've known blokes like that and enjoy their company. But I'd never want to marry one. I hope by the end of the book if you're a woman you might consider marrying Rob. And if you do, this song is why...

The current book is going to be a Christmas story. It is somewhat more ambitious in structure then anything I've attempted before. I'm using flashbacks. Yikes. And four characters in two locations. Double Yikes.

To start with I was going to go for three storylines, following the fortunes of Gabriel, a shepherd who starts the story as his wife leaves, and Marianne who moves to the country only to get dumped. Their strand of the story takes place in a fictional village I've based on the place where my mum lives in Shropshire, while the other strand is following the fortunes of Catherine who lives in London. Catherine and I have a deal in common, as we both have four children. But I hope that's where the resemblance is going to end. I gave her four children, mainly because for plot purposes she needs a great deal of chaos in her life, and believe you me four children do that to you.

Once again, Catherine's husband Noel was going to be an also ran, a necessary but secondary character. However, like Rob, he was having none of that (my characters certainly like bossing me about), and as soon as I started writing Chapter One he took over and said, hey what about me. As background material I watched It's A Wonderful Life for the first time. Inexplicably it was one of those films I'd always meant to see but never had (can't think why as I adore James Stewart), and when I did see it it blew me away entirely. And THEN I really got what Noel's story was going to be. In some ways it's at the heart of the story, and is going to pivot round a very important scene towards the end of the book (this also always happens to me when I'm writing - I have a scene in my head from the very beginning which occurs near the end, but has immense significance for the outcome of the story. I've never tried writing that scene first, though it's very tempting, but I think I need to live through the story myself before I get there).

And THEN... I heard Neil Diamond's new song Pretty Amazing Grace and it blew my mind, and I realised this song is at the heart of Noel's story. Like Feel it sends shivers up my spine and takes me into the soul of who I want Noel to be, and what his problems are. I'm not sure if I've explained that very coherently. But that's sort of the way it seems to work for me.

So here it is (along with Love on the Rocks, as an added bonus)

I defy you not to have the hairs on the back of your neck rise...

Squee! Squee!

2008-07-02T09:19:00.000-07:00

Squeeing is another new word I've learnt recently, courtesy of all my blogging DrWho friends. I am definitely squeeing out loud about this.

The designers at Avon have done me proud once again and come up with this fantastic cover, of which I am inordinately fond. I have literally just recieved it and was so excited I had to put it up here straight away...

Squee. Squee.

I wish I could dance like they clearly can...

Cinderella goes to the ball

2008-07-02T02:47:00.001-07:00

One of the characters in Strictly Love, Katie, frequently feels like Cinderella deprived from going to the ball. I know how she feels. It's rare for me to get out these days, and when I do I don't often stray too far from my own doorstep.

However, last night Cinderella got to go the ball in the shape of the Harper Collins annual summer bash at the V&A. Thanks to two splendid friends who looked after three of the children for me and an equally splendid husband who got home in time to take the oldest swimming before picking everyone else up, I was unusually able to go up to town.

To celebrate I put on my Cinderella type dancing shoes, which look a bit like this.

Or rather, I put them on in the girls' loos when I arrived. I don't think I'd have made it off the platform without breaking my neck if I hadn't. As it was, I gingerly made my way up the steps from the loos, and hobbled down a marble floored corridor hoping that I didn't look as much of a prize prat as I felt. Il faut suffre pour etre belle, must surely have been written by a man...

As I arrived I noticed rather a lot of photographers standing on the steps of the V&A. I was just about to cut through them when I realised this person was prancing about in the middle of them. Whoops!

So I scurried around the back of the pack. If you spot a woman in a red dress in the background of a picture of Gok in the next issue of Hello! That'll be me then.

As it happens, this year's party proved fine fodder for celeb spotting (I'd call them zedlebrities - a fine word I borrowed from Danuta Kean to use in Strictly Love, but none of them were really Zlisters, so that wouldn't be fair.)

Within minutes of hobbling my way into the crowded garden where the party was helped (the crowd gave me a good excuse to hobble looking slightly less of a prat), I spotted good old Tory Boy himself and his wife Ffion...

Actually, while I thought he was a pillock as Leader of the Tories, I did come to respect William Hague hugely after listening to him roundly trounce Teflon Tone several times at the Dispatch Box at PMQs, and his book on Pitt the Younger is brilliant. He's a very clever man, and methinks in years to come the Tories may well regard him as the Greatest Leader they never had.

William and Ffion were soon joined by this person

who was extremely glamorous in the flesh. I did wonder how well they knew each other - is there a kind of celeb club, where you are forced to talk to people you don't like but have to as ordinary joes like me are too embarrassed to speak to you?

Mind you, if that was the case, then this person would have been speaking to them too.

I can't quite see Hague and Baddiel doing fantasy football together....

Or this person either.

He was forced to talk to his agent all night long. My agent and I stood next to them for ages and she kept daring me to speak to him. I could possibly have wangled it when he was joined by Freya North, who I met earlier this year after she won the RNA award.

In the end though I decided it was more gracious and grown up not to bother celebrities, and just get on with the business of the day, namely drinking the plentiful champagne on offer, while chatting to lovely booky people in beautiful surroundings.

Cinderella not only went to the ball. She absolutely had one.

So my thanks go out to all those lovely people at Harper Collins for not only inviting me but making it all happen.

And to all the wonderful Avon team, who are so much fun.

I do wish my feet weren't aching quite so much though...

Dance like there's no tomorrow.

2008-06-20T09:33:00.001-07:00

We went to a 40th birthday party on Saturday night, which as we approach our mid forties is becoming something of a rare event. Nothing makes you feel more middle aged then the comment a friend of ours made, What? You still know people young enough to be 40?

However, age isn't everything as I'm sure you'll agree. And you're only as old as the woman you feel or the man you dance with etc, so we went out to forget how old we were and to have a good time.

A good time in my husband's case normally means avoiding the dance floor at all costs, whereas to me that is the whole point of going out.

We have some very good friends who always lead the dancing on such occasions. In fact the reason I actually know the moves to the Macarena is entirely down to them. So when my other half declines to join me to strut his funky stuff, I usually end up dancing with them instead. I don't care if no one's looking...

As we had to factor in a ten year old's birthday party first (where they also did a lot of dancing - including the strangest version of Oopsupsideyourhead I've ever seen. Ok, ok, there's not much competition for that slot...), followed by the highlight of our week, for which no social occasion is important enough for us to miss - namely the family fest of hiding behind the sofa - we got to the party rather late, by which time my dancing buddy was rather the worse for wear.

Never mind, I joined her anyway, and had a huge laugh trying to escape the attentions of an unwanted beau. Now when I was twenty I would have been deeply offended by his charmless chat up lines (I believe he told me I was frigid at one point), but now I am middle aged I think it is hilarious that anyone other then my husband is interested in my charms such as they are. I did tell him at one point I was old enough to be his mother, but forebore from using my favourite putdown which is Married, Four Children, Do You Really Want to Know? Last time I used that one New Year when I was pregnant (but my potential hero hadn't spotted this as I was sitting down) I've never seen someone run so fast. I have a feeling Saturday's loverboy was so desperate that wouldn't actually have put him off.

But I digress. I managed to avoid shimmying up to LB, and eventually (having ascertained that my other half had drunk just enough to lose his inhbitions, but not so much he wasn't able to dance) got my husband to strut his funky stuff with me. The deeply annoying thing about my husband is that he could be a very very fine dancer, but he is far to English and self conscious. So it is only a combination of red wine and You Really Got Me by the Kinks which gets him dancing. Mind you, once he's up there, it is also very hard to get him away...

Eventually it had passed the witching hour and it really was time to drag ourselves home. We left to the sight of our hostess with the mostest being slam dunked against a wall, without a thought to what tomorrow would bring...

Tomorrow in fact brought a rather bad back.

But that's what being 40 does to you....

The Hills Are Alive....

2008-06-19T04:24:00.001-07:00

Ouch. I seem to have left an inordinate amount of time since blogging my last, but life has been a tad busy. In the interim I have been dealing with the copyedited and now proof version of Strictly Love. I have just waved goodbye to the latter, and with something of a pang waved goodbye to characters with whom I've lived now for over a year.

Looking at page proofs of something you've written is a weird experience. The words don't look right. I frequently read something and think, Did I really write that? then go back and check and realise somehow I have. This time around I was hit by a huge wave of self doubt, so much so that I am tempted to believe the kind Amazon reviewer who pronounced Pastures New to be "dreadful drivel". At this stage of the process it is almost impossible to see the wood for the trees, and I know from my editing days it is perfectly possible to change something for the worse if you're not careful, so I have gritted my teeth and only changed the Huge Howlers (two characters inexplicably changed names halfway through) and the continuity errors I'd managed to introduce after some severe rewriting. I am hoping the end result is nowhere as bad as it feels right now. I have lost all sense of emotion attached to the book, which is wierd when you consider that I was so immersed in their story at one point I actually cried at a scene I'd written. But I guess, as Surallen would say, it's part of the process...

The one bit of the book though, that I do remain inordinately proud of is the dancing scenes. I think they do work, and writing them was an absolute blast.

In my real life we recently took the children to see the Sound of Music which was appropriate because Emily is a huge fan. I was labouring under the delusion that you can quote from songs in books without paying huge copyright fees if you have your characters quote from them, but helas, this has proved not to be the case. I have a scene where Mark comes back drunk having spent an evening with Emily, singing The Hills are Alive... but have had to paraphrase instead.

Watching the thing on stage I was actually quite struck how few songs there are in it, apart from Hills/ How do you solve a problem like Maria?/Doh a deer/Raindrops and roses/ I am sixteen, there isn't alot else. I was hoping for a bit more dancing too. Last year we went to see Mary Poppins and the dancing was stunning. The only bit of dancing in this is when Maria and the captain dance and fall in love. Which would have worked brilliantly except that I didn't believe there was an ounce of compatibility between them up to that point. The script though is wonderful, as they suddenly realise how they really feel about each other, and the dance itself was executed beautifully.

It wasn't quite as good as Mary Poppins, but we did enjoy it and Summer Strallen makes a worthy successor to Connie Fisher.

On which note I leave you with this, the hilarious trailer for How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? which we never got round to watching (though we've followed Jodie's journey to being Nancy avidly).

Enjoy....

Come Dancing....

2008-05-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

I am a big fan of the Kinks, but that was my least favourite song of theirs before going to see Ray Davies live last year (he was magic), and hearing him tell the story about writing it as a result of watching his sister going out dancing when he was growing up. It struck me then, that somewhere along the line with the advent of pop music and culture, we lost something with regards to dancing.

When I was eighteen my parents had their silver wedding anniversary. After a sit down dinner, my parents and their peers took to the floor to do a waltz. I remember watching my dad gliding my mum around the room in awe. I had had no idea they could do that, and was dead envious. But when I was growing up Come Dancing was a programme that was laughed out of touch. If you'd expressed an interest in learning how to do it, people would have thought you were bonkers.

So hats off to Strictly Come Dancing for reviving interest in ballroom dancing, and providing such brilliant research material too boot. Since I've been writing Strictly Love, I've watched dozens of the dances on You Tube to get a flavour of how the pros do it, and help me set the scene of the book. This samba from Mark Ramprakash and Kara Tointon for Sports Relief is one of my favourites. I do hope Kara gets to be in the next series of SCD on the back of it...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPXtiVR82E4

As well as watching a lot of videos on You Tube, I also watched some online dancing classes, and had several seriously odd moments when I was listening to a Texan called Hank describing how to do Cuban Motion and trying it out in my not exactly huge study. I also got the chance to meet Izabela Hannah, who is a pro from one of the early SCD series who helped me out enormously.

I have just finished the second rewrites on Strictly Love, and hope I have succeeded in making the dancing scenes credible. I did reread Katie and Rob's rumba while listening to Body Heat (the correct version this time), and I think it works...

Though I am done with the book, I am definitely not done with dancing, and will still be blogging about it. I also hope that given my inability to get to any dance classes conveniently I can persuade my reluctant husband to practise with the dvds I bought, also for research. On the other hand, the attempt I made to follow it with the children were fairly disastrous. So maybe not...

So now I have to get on with book three, provisionally titled Last Christmas, which among other things features a shepherd. Hmm. And I though the research for Strictly Love was challenging...

The Doctor Dances

2008-04-14T09:11:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit busy of late, what with second round of rewrites for Strictly Love an absurd Easter holiday/Spring Break which meant the children stopped school for Easter, started again and have now been off a week. So blogging time has been severely limited. This state of affairs looks likely to continue till next week. So... As the new Dr Who season is upon us, I thought I'd post this to keep you entertained in my absence.

Enjoy....

I would also like to point out here that all my favourite Dr Who episodes (The EmptyChild/The Doctor Dances; The Girl in the Fireplace; Blink) have been written by one Stephen Moffat. And I ahem share his surname albeit with an extra t, and as I married a Williams I don't use the previous moniker quite so often... But we Moffatt/Moffats should stick together. And as my children would say. His episodes rock.

Body Talk: the interactive edition

2008-03-25T07:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I tried. I really tried. I so wanted to give you an insight into my quite strange (frankly) creative processes by producing a video of a sexy rumba to the tune of Body Talk, but helas, my lack of expertise and the limits of YouTube prevented me. I DID try to find a video of dancing from Istockphotos, but all I could find were people break dancing or a rather sappy couple stumbling round incredibly slowly and not at all sexily against a sunset backdrop.

So what you have instead, is Bodytalk: the Interactive Version.

Thanks to Loulabelle who sent me to these two rumbas, I give you first, Michal and Joanna, who are the real deal. This is an incredibly sexy rumba and EXACTLY the sort of thing I was imagining for Katie and Rob, only they won't be as good as this. In order to get the right mood, bear with me for a moment and scroll down to my prevous entry and turn on the Imagination YouTube video and then watch the dancing to the tune. You won't get it quite in cync (believe me I have tried) but it does fit incredibly well, and makes me realise that I am barking up entirely the right tree here...

When you've done with Michal and Joanna try the same thing with this SCD couple, James and Ola. Only here, do make sure you turn the sound down so you don't get sappy Westlife singing... It doesn't work quite as well, but there is something sublimely surreal about watching Westlife singing in the background with an entirely different song going on...

I've just tried and realised that this video suffers from a surfeit of Westlife and a dearth of dancing, but c'est la vie.

Oh and many thanks to Loulabelle for putting me onto both...

Body Talk

2008-03-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

Following on from my previous post, I suddenly realised I had made a grave error. When I googled Body Talk lyrics I couldn't remember who the band were who sang the version that I remember from my teens (and which was used so effectively in Ashes to Ashes the other week). This was also partly because I always get it mixed up with Diana Ross' Let's Get Physical. At least, I think it's Diana Ross. You see I'm confused. I can't help it...

The weekend I was also busy rewriting Strictly Love I was also frantically googling dancing stuff on You Tube/emailing lawyers of my acquaintance/trying to learn dance steps while sitting at my computer, so my brain did get a tad addled.

I found what I thought were the right lyrics, by a band I couldn't remember called Ratt. And I had Rob whisper some of them to Katie as they danced (thereby handily getting round the need to seek copyright - you can quote lyrics in conversations or rephrase them).

The only trouble is of course, as any fule could have told me by now I had got the wrong sodding band.

There is a song called Body Talk by Ratt, but the one I was after was the one by Imagination.

Had I looked properly on You Tube (which for reasons which desert me now I failed to do), I could have found this. Which would have just been confusing frankly.

Or this, which would have made me realise the error of my ways.

When really it was this, which I was after all along. The perfect accompaniment to a rumba. I think... For the next stage of rewrites, which is the nitpicking phase, I am planning to choreograph the whole dance while listening to this to see if I can make it work. If not, well, I shall just claim dramatic license. Cos it's a dead sexy song. And it's a dead sexy dance. And I think if I were a married woman dancing to it with a bloke I rather fancied I might be in trouble. Which is the general idea...

And if I can manage it to help me out, I may try and find a video of the rumba and put this over it to see if it fits. I've tried it with the SCD version James and Orla did, as recommended by Loulabelle, and if you ignore the fact that Westlife are singing in the background it does kind of work...

Musings on the muse... and music

2008-03-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

Ever since I started writing I have found music an essential part of the creative process. In my first book (thankfully consigned where it belongs to the bottom drawer) this musical inspiration mainly took the form of my heroine dancing to I will Survive at key points in the text. I then started a novel which I've never finished which was going to be called Losing My Religion (after the REM song).

For my second novel (also hiding somewhere in the second from bottom drawer), I lost interest in music for a bit and got distracted by poetry. My anti hero was going to be a fan of Restoration poetry which is full of bad boy heroes and seemed to fit him well. The title Coming Full Circle was inspired by one of my favourite poems, John Donne's A Valediction Forbidding Mourning, as I don't really see why just because I write commercial fiction I can't get a little bit intellectual from time to time...

But when it came to writing Pastures New it was music which set me off. One particular song in fact, which is if you like the theme song of the book. I have blogged at length about that on my other blog, but the song in question was Forever Autumn by Justin Hayward, as it summed up my heroine's emotional state at the start of the book - she has lost the love of her life and feels it will always be autumn now for her. The story of course, is about how she comes to terms with her loss, and faces up to the prospect of a new love, in the form of Ben (I hope a sexy enigmatic doctor).

When I was writing PN initially, I had six parts to the book, and each part had it's theme tune as it were, but once my editor got hold of it, she quite rightly got me to restructure it into four parts, which retain the same theme tunes, but the other two (California Dreamin' by the Mamas & Papas, and Sing by Travis were still heavy influences).

For Strictly Love, I've gone a bit further. I started out again, with four theme tunes for each part, which are:

The First Cut is the Deepest - Cat Stevens
The Weakness in Me - Joan Armatrading
Can't Get You Out of my Head - Kylie
The Miracle of Love - Eurythmics.

But this time I took it a stage further, and also gave my characters theme tunes/and used music to try and inspire particular emotions as I wrote.

One of the difficulties in novel writing, I realise, is that unlike in a film say, where you can put in the script, he looks at her and an actor can convey powerful emotions in his/her movements, they way they look etc, often helped by a musical score (my favourite film for this is Last of the Mohicans, which contains my favourite romantic line in a film ever, "Just stay alive, and I will find you", accompanied by fabulous shots of Daniel Day Lewis running, against a wonderful musical score sums this up sublimely), the poor novelist has to get all that emotion out by themselves, with no help whatsoever from any other bugger - just the precious words the muse might choose to bestow at that minute.

Which is where, for me the music comes in.

Like I said, this time, I did things slightly differently.

I have two couples whose stories are intertwined. I don't want to give too much away, but Mark is a divorced dentist, who gets sued by a zedlebrity patient (I love that word, and have Danuta Kean to thank for it), while Emily is a media lawyer who is increasingly finding her life banal and soulless. Her best friend Katie, a married mother of three, persuades Emily to go to dancing classes, where they meet Mark, who has been dragged along by his best friend Rob, a serial commitment freak.

In the end I gave them all a theme tune.

Mark has the Cat Stevens song, as he cannot get over his wife leaving him. He also has a tricky relationship with his thirteen year old daughter for which I used Abba's Slipping Through My Fingers.

Rob started out as a bit of a jokey figure, but the more I got to know him, the more I realise he has hidden depths, so his tune is Feel by Robbie Williams: I've got so much life running through my veins going to waste... Those lines send shivers up my spine, and became almost a motif for me to finding a way in to Rob's character.

Both the girls get Joan Armatrading's The Weakness in Me - both of them at different points have choices to make about who is right and who is wrong for them.

And while according to Rob, the boys' theme tune should be The Boys are Back in Town, actually it's more like Fifteen Years by the Levellers. My husband and I have been drinking in our local for longer then that, and there are people we know for whom this song could have been written: The laughs in the late night lock in/Faded away when he gets in/The girl from fifteen years ago has packed and gone away... I love that song. It's so bloody tragic, and it's so easy for people's lives to go awry like that - which is something that Mark and Rob are becoming horribly aware of.

Additionally I gave Katie Body Talk - ok, actually I nicked that from an episode of Ashes to Ashes, but it was soooo perfect for a rumba scene, where she's being tempted in all the wrong directions.

Writing sex scenes for an author is never easy - there is apart from anything else the ever present fear of ending up nominated for the Bad Sex Awards - but I felt at one point Emily and Mark needed to go to bed together. I really really wanted to replicate the most fabulously tender sex scene I've ever read by my writing buddy Elizabeth Chadwick. It takes place between Hawise and Bruin in Shadows and Strongholds, and it is a wonderful bit of writing. I know from brief and funny forays into trying my hand at erotica it isn't really my thing, so I have (you'll probably be pleased to know) kept it brief. But The Miracle of Love was the song that inspired me as it so perfectly encapsulates that joyous almost unbelieving feeling that new love brings.

Later in the book, Emily and Mark are forced apart and I used Sting's Fields of Gold for a scene where they are brought briefly together which only makes them realise what they've lost.

Finally for all of them I used Richard Ashcroft's A Song for Lovers which makes me feel, I dunno, all emotional and churned up the way you do when you're in love.

And I listened to Shape of my Heart by Sting alot cos, I think that's really romantic too.

I'm just getting going on book no 3 and the songs shaping up so far are:

This is Where I Came In - Bee Gees - Never going to find someone like you/girl with a brain and body too.. Time has gone/but I'll go anywhere with you...

Your Love is Not Enough - Manic Street Preachers - Your love alone is not enough, not enough not enough. When times get tough, they get tough , they get tough...

The Other Side of the World to Me - KT Tunstall - But its too hard to say/I wish it were simple, but we give up easily/you're closer now to see that, you're the other side of the world to me....

Put the Sun Back - Coral we've got to put the sun back in our hearts.

As you might be getting the idea, there are alot of confused relationships at the beginning of this book...

Flavia and Vincent doing the Argentinian Tango.

2008-03-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

If that's not dirty dancing, I don't know what is....

Two to Tango...

2008-03-12T04:15:00.001-07:00

Was at one point going to be the name of this book, but I'm definitely going with my ed here, when she feels we should adopt a Strictly theme, so Strictly Love is where we're at currently...

I mention the tango because I tried to make my husband learn it with me last week. To be honest, my timing wasn't great. It was late, we'd had rather a lot of red, and the tango is a slightly odd dance. In a way you don't dance at all. You walk. Sideways. With your faces stuck together like glue. And when you start off, according to Izobela you have to lean your head backwards in most awkward fashion, keeping it over your left hip. So we didn't make a terribly good fist of the tango, it has to be said.

However two can tango in quite other ways too, especially when you have four children and one of you gets given an urgent deadline on a book, as happened to us the other week.

It was my fault really. I'd had the comments from my ed sitting on my desk for several weeks, but other work had got in the way, then half term, then my husband took time off over his birthday, and suddenly, I was slightly up against it. Slightly up against it? I was pressed flat against a brick wall with my nose squashed more like.

So, I had an utterly surreal weekend at the computer. Normally Saturday morning is spent ferrying children to their various activities, and as there is one point during the morning when three of them have to be in different places at the SAME time, we both have to take part in this parental servitude. However, thank the lord, on this particular occasion, one was ill, one hurt her foot and the other couldn't face going so we left them to watch tv, while I slaved away.

I was painfully aware when I was writing the first draft that lack of time had left me to skimp on the research. And I knew there were two main areas where I needed to show a bit more proper depth. The first was in the area of legal expertise. I am not a lawyer, but one of my heroines is. Luckily a writing friend had answered my early questions about stuff, but I was horribly conscious I had written some court room scenes that were more Judge John Deeds then anything else. I sent them to her, and to my good blogging friend Political Umpire (also a lawyer) and they both sent me word that on more then one point I had gone horribly awry. Most of the points they raised were eminently fixable, but a couple gave me a huge headache as they were crucial to the plot and I had a fiendish time trying to work out what the hell I could get my characters to do instead. I think I solved both problems, I hope the legal bits now work better, and if they don't well, I fess up here and now that that is entirely my fault...

The second area slightly lacking was the dancing. In fact for a book about dancing, there wasn't nearly enough in it. We need more dancing, said my ed. Yes, of course, so we do, said I. Thinking, help........ Most of the dancing bits had been written cribbing from Marie Phillips' fantastically funny reviews of the last series of Strictly Come Dancing on her blog. I found myself frantically reviewing them again, plus bombarding her with questions about the sexiest dance I could watch to draw inspiration from (Flavia and Vincent dancing the Argentinian tango, if you want to know. I will try and post it here, but You Tube seems to send my videos to the other blog for some reason). I also trawled the web for online dance classes, dance clothing sites, and even tapped out the dance moves on my own. Actually if anyone had been noticing when I took the children to their tennis class the previous Thursday, I was actually sitting there, with my laptop and a dancing book, tracing steps out under the table. Honestly, this writing malarkey makes madmen of us all. Sometimes I think I'm seriously bonkers.

Even more bonkers was the realisation at one point I had actually CRIED as I wrote a tearjerky scene (yes, well probably the prose was that dire too), but with any luck if it made me cry it might possibly have the same effect on readers. Or alternatively they can always cry with laughter.

Anyway, I did it, eventually. And my other half manfully coped with cooking and laundry and children for the weekend.

So, like I say, it takes two to tango.

Although, his method of getting the children to sort out the laundry (go and find your own things and put them away, without supervision) does leave something to be desired...

But if only I could get him to dance the way he does domesticity, my cup of happiness would be complete...

Invisible

2008-02-27T02:42:00.000-08:00

On Monday it was my husband's birthday. I had intended to buy him and me a dancing lesson, but Izobela was away last week and rather inefficiently I hadn't got round to booking one with her before she went.

My husband like a lot of men I suspect mostly stands on the side drinking a pint when I start hitting the dance floor. This is not because he is too embarrassed to show off his dad dancing, but because he needs several pints to give him the confidence to go up and strut his funky stuff. Which can be very funky indeed. Particularly if he is throwing me round the dance floor to the dulcet tones of Ray Davies and You Really Got Me. Indeed, I rather suspect if he hadn't grown in a house bristling with testosterone and had had dancing lessons like his older brother (who hated them), he might have been rather good at it. I have been very very keen to get him dancing ever since I went to salsa lessons a few years ago, but time, inclination and not enough beer has prevented him from taking me up on the offer.

As it was his birthday, we went out for dinner with several friends on Saturday night to a tapas bar. Helas, no dancing there either, but much red wine and good cheer (and in my case too much talking to get round to eating, but rather a lot of red wine drinking - oh dear), and after a lot of both we staggered on home via two pubs. We ended up in our local (which has as promised for years to several drinking buddies, made a cameo in Strictly Love - I have made a lot of stuff up about it, because quite frankly you wouldn't believe the stories that really exist about the place). Sometimes they have bands on in our local, and it has been known for us to strut our funky stuff there after dark. But helas. There was no music on on Saturday. Just a lot more wine. But no dancing...

We eventually staggered home at just gone midnight, and I have vague memories of watching the rugby, which our oldest daughter had videoed for the man in my life. They were so vague I still didn't know who'd won in the morning. Then we decided to sit in the kitchen, opening a bottle of wine we needed like a hole in the heads, and listening to the new Alison Moyet CD my husband had bought that day.

At that point, enough red wine and good cheer had been consumed for him to suddenly realise that Alison Moyet just begged to be danced with, which she most certainly certainly does at one in the morning when you are nearly too pissed to stand, let alone put one foot in front of the other. I was trying really really hard to remember Izobela's strictures about 3/4 time and whether it is back step, side, close, forward, and spin, while trying to impress on my husband the importance of him following me into dancing heaven without falling over.

I am pleased to report, we didn't fall over, I did feel like I'd got the hang of snake hips (in vino muchos exagiteras me thinks) and it was ever so much fun.

But I think like Alison Moyet, it would have been better to be invisible...

Following on from such a triumph, we had a sneaky day off together without the children on Monday, and then treated ourselves to chinese for tea. The children decided that as it was a party (the great thing about there being six of us in the house is we can have instant parties), we had to LISTEN to music. The first song they inflicted on us was Grace Kelly by Mika. I have had this shoved down my throat ad nauseam since the eldest bought his CD recently, but I have to confess it does make my toes tap. So as is my wont when I am loading the dishwasher, my toes were soon tapping and so where the childrens' - although the older two affect nonchalance at the embarrassment of having a mother who boogies round the kitchen while putting the dishes away.

This was then followed by a swift run through The Hoosiers new album, which we'd bought my husband for his birthday. The children's favourite is Worried about Ray, which has the most barking video I've seen in a long time. But as I like naff SF movies, it kind of works for me.

And it certainly makes your toes tap...

But just as well you can't see me dancing from here...

PS As my lack of grasp of video sharing technology seems to prevent me from sending a video direct to this blog you can hop over to the other one to see the nuttiness of the Hoosier video in all its glory.

First Steps...

2008-02-15T04:59:00.000-08:00

Well I survived my first dance lesson.

What am I talking about survived?

I had an absolute blast. The best best thing about being a published author is I finally feel I can justify taking part of a morning off to go and learn how to dance in the interests of research. It's my job, you see. But how lucky to be able to have so much fun while you're doing it.

The morning didn't start too auspiciously as I wasn't quite sure where I was going and when I arrived, realised that the dance studio was on a main road with no parking for more then twenty minutes and a police car across the road. I drove round fruitlessly for some little while before parking on a yellow behind another car and hoping that the policeman wouldn't notice me.

I did feel quite nervous as I walked through the doors of the studio. Was I too old for all this? Too awkward? And when I saw the calibre of the sexy young couple strutting their stuff on the dance floor, too amateur by half?

However, I needn't have worried, as my dance teacher, whom I can now reveal to be Izobela Hannah who featured on SCD in 2005, was not only delightful, but instantly put me at ease.

On discovering that I wanted to get the feel for several dances (I have worked out rumba standing on my own in front of a computer screen, and tried to waltz with a nine year old following a dvd, but it isn't quite the same) she kindly showed me the basic steps of rumba, tango and social foxtrot.

In rumba apparently the thing to do is to keep the top half of your body straight and tall, but the bottom half should be lithe and lissome, so you can perfect your snake hip type movement. I had got the idea about snake hips from my computer forays, but actually executing it in the fluid way Izobela does is a whole different ballgame. Like most things in life, if you relax it's easier. To start with nerves were making me stiff as a post and I was so worried about not getting the basic steps, back, side close, forward side close, trying to keep your feet in between your partner's WITHOUT tripping up, takes some doing I can tell you. As I am the sort of person who has never been able to master that trick where you rub your head and your tummy simultaneously in opposite directions, you will understand that I really get muddled with my left and rights.

However, Izobela did manage to get me moving more fluidly, and thanks to her explanation of how to listen to your partner's body movements, I have a much better sense of how sensuous this dance could be, which is perfect for one particular scene when one of my couples get drawn closer together (and thanks to watching Ashes to Ashes last night, I've also given them the perfect tune to dance to: Body Talk).

After mastering a simple routine, Izobela then took me on to the tango. Here I felt like a complete prat I have to say. I'm not tall, but Izobela is much smaller then me, and with the tango you don't look at your partner, so I found myself staring in the mirror and wishing I could move as easily as she does. It was however very funny learning how to stretch myself right back with my head flung right back, before coming forward again and doing this funny rocking thing (which if I did it with my husband I wouldn't be able to cope without falling into fits of giggles), before doing that wonderful side stepping bit which the tango is famous for, and then ending it in a spin. I have a tango scene at the end of the book, and I can really see how that works much better now.

I can also see how to get my other couple (who are hopeless at dancing) into some wonderfully entangled situations, where they can trip each other up, or just keep leading with the wrong foot.

Finally Izobela took me onto the social foxtrot. This apparently is a good one to use when you're in a crowded room. When proper competitive dancers do it, they should, so Izobela told me simply glide around the room (and she demonstrated this brilliantly with her next pupil), but it's common for beginners to fumble and for the men not to lead properly. Again. Great material for the couple who can't dance, and watching it done properly made me itch to get up there and really have a go.

If I had world enough and time... And all that.

Unfortunately time is something I'm rather short of. Izobela does run a beginner's class, but on Monday evenings when I am out swimming (and as I appear to have finally committed myself to taking part in a triathlon this year I can't let the swimming go), so I'm planning a few lessons with her spread out over the next few months and hope with that and the help of my dvds, I might actually get to grips with this.

Because I haven't had such fun in a while.

And however hopeless I am. I do love to dance...

Like a Virgin...

2008-02-14T01:38:00.000-08:00

I'm just off to my first dance lesson.

I feel absurdly nervous. I can't think why. It doesn't really matter if I trip over my feet after all.

Made the mistake of telling my other half what it's costing, but promised him I'd put it down as a business expense. Which it is of course...

Will report back I hope later about how it went, but it's a busy day and I may not get back here till tomorrow.

Hopefully I won't take a leaf out of my offsprings' book and trip over and hurt myself...

Update

2008-02-13T02:52:00.000-08:00

Bugger. I've fallen at the first hurdle.

Thanks to a domestically challenged night, I didn't make it last night.

However, I have got a lesson I booked tomorrow. And little does my husband know (luckily he doesnt' read my blog) I am going to buy us a lesson for his birthday...

Last night's lack of dancing has led me to realise this is likely to be a rather common occurence, so I hope you'll forgive me if some of the blogging about learning to dance is done via the books I'm reading and the DVDs I've purchased...

But I will let you know what happens tomorrow...

Dance like no one's looking

2008-02-12T07:05:00.000-08:00

Today I was given a mission by my editor.

In order to properly research my latest book I have agreed to undergo dancing lessons. In order to maximise the publicity possibilities inherent in this, my mission should I choose to accept it is that I shall thereafter blog about my attempts to do so.

Given that I have two left feet and no sense of rhythm, this could be highly amusing.

On the other hand I do love to dance...

So tonight I am going to attend my first ballroom dancing lesson. Excitingly given by someone who was on Strictly Come Ballroom in 2005. Which is just a bit exciting.

I'm going to have a one to one lesson with her on Thursday, which is even more exciting.

And little does my husband know it, but I'm buying us both a dancing lesson for his birthday...

At the heart of my latest book (which bears the tentative title Strictly Love) is these four lines, which are attributed to everyone from Mark Twain to a Chinese Proverb.

I don't care where they're from.

I just love them.

Love like you've never been hurt
Dance like no one's looking
Work like you don't have to
Live like Heaven on Earth

I sincerely hope no one is looking too much tonight...