Okay, so I know I don't cover it much here, but Strictly Come Dancing has just started up on BBC1. Other blogs cover it much better than I ever could, so I heartily recommend you head over to them if SCD is on your must-see list.
However, to coincide with its return to our screens - and the recent publication of Julia Williams' latest book - we're running a competition in which you can win copies of Strictly Love as well as 'dancing masterclass in a book', Collins' Need to Know? Ballroom Dancing.
Guilty feet have got plenty of rhythm! Kick off your shoes and snuggle up with this warm and witty new novel from the author of the bestselling Pastures New
Lawyer Emily promised her late father that she'd devote her life to good causes. So how comes she spends her days defending Z-listers, desperate to prolong their 15 minutes of fame?
Katie is obsessed with being the perfect wife and mother - unlike her own one. In which case, why is husband Charlie permanently AWOL these days?
Dentist Mark is licking his wounds after his wife walked out on him and desperately missing his kids. Can he cope with becoming a singleton again - on top of a devastating legal case against him?
Meanwhile, happy-go-lucky Jack the Lad Rob is hiding a secret tragedy!
Isabella's dance classes give the four the perfect opportunity to forget their troubles and re-invent themselves. They can be whoever they want to be - they'll just let their feet do the talking. Over the weeks, as they foxtrot, tango, waltz and cha-cha-cha their way into each other's lives, they discover the truth about each other - and themselves. But will they like what they learn?
Thanks to Julia's generosity, we have an astonishing five copies of Strictly Love to give away, as well as two copies of Need to Know? Ballroom Dancing, and all you have to do to enter is to leave a comment below by Friday 3rd October, letting us know your most memorable dancing experience ever - it doesn't even have to have been you dancing. The two most interesting experiences (or two best recounted experiences) will win copies of both Strictly Love and Need to Know? Ballroom Dancing, while three runners up will each receive a copy of Strictly Love.
As always, entrants must live in the UK. Plus it'll help if you include your email address when you leave the comment so we can contact you if you've won - don't worry, we won't publish it.
Updates and related entries
October 6, 2008: The winners of the Strictly Love competition
September 22, 2008 | Reply
MY MEMORY IS DANCING WITH MY HUSBAND ON OUR WEDDING DAY, WE HAD BEEN TOGTHER OVER 5 YEARS AND NEVER ONCE HAD WE DANCED TOGETHER, ENDLESS NIGHTS OUT IN CLUBS BUT HE WASN'T INTERESTED IN DANCING JUST WATCHED ME DNCE WITH MY MATES. WHEN IT CAME TO ARRANGING MUSIC FOR OUT RECEPTION WE WAS ASKED WHAT WE WOULD LIKE FOR OUR FIRST DANCE, MY HUSBAND QUILKLY REPLIES WE WON'T BE HAVING ONE! WE JUST ARRANGED TO HAVE A NORMAL DISCO PLAYED. WHEN OUR RECPTION ARRIVED I WAS TOTALLY SHOCKED WHEN THE BRIDE AND GROOM WERE ASKED TO GO ON THE DANCEFLOOR, I THOUGHT THEY HAD JUST FORGOTTEN OUR PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENTS BUT I WAS WRONG, MY HUSBAND HAD SECRETLY ARRANGED FOR US TO DANCE TO MY FAVORITE SONG AND IT WAS THE FIRST AND LAST TIME I HAVE DANCED WITH MY HUBAND OF 6 YEARS, BUT IT WAS THE BEST DANCE I'VE EVER HAD AS I IT WAS PURLEY DONE OUT OF LOVE.
September 23, 2008 | Reply
My most memorable dance experience was with my husband on a night out in penzance. We started early and hit the "dance" floor in a pub at about 9.30, to the utter horror of the teenage population. We cavorted - not entirely sober - on the minute stage until we fell in a giggly heap (that was me) and by that time the teenagers took over. I will never forget the look on their faces.
September 23, 2008 | Reply
Two really - because they're interwined:
1) Cloud and I once attended a Salsa evening - there was a professional tutor and he very patiently had us all lined up to dance and also came round individually to each person/pairing....
We were so spectacularly bad at showing any level of co-ordination that he eventually sighed and muttered despairingly as he patted us on the arm "just do your own thing"
2) based on that success you can guess how we looked when very romantically Cloud swept me into a 'waltz' in Grand Central Station NYC in honour of one of our favourite movie moments (the dance sequence from The Fisher King). It was sweet, and the handful of people there late at night must have thought 'crazy Brits', but man, we were embarrassingly rubbish at dancing...
September 23, 2008 | Reply
PS take it as read I'm entering for the glorious Stictly Love and probably won't get much benefit from the 'Need to Know: Ballroom Dancing'.
September 23, 2008 | Reply
I've never been any good at any of the performing arts so I was never chosen to appear in school concerts or plays until one year they put on Pilgrim's Progress and I was allowed to be part of the Slough Of Despond. Okay, it wasn't ballroom dancing, but I writhed as artistically as I could to the music and my mother said that I did as much as anyone could who was playing a bog. Anyway, I finally got my name in a programme :)
September 23, 2008 | Reply
My most memorable dance is when trying to charm the pants off a guy I fancied in the local nightclub with my outrageously good dancing skills.. the toilet roll in my bra - which seemed a great intoxicated idea at the time - fell out onto the floor. in full view of everyone. how we laughed.
September 27, 2008 | Reply
My most memorable dance moment is not one as an adult but one of childhood dance lessons.
Though hoplessly co-ordinated now I used to take ballet and tap lessons and we once put on a production of Peter Pan in which I was Captain Hook.
I was dressed for the part - clothes, hook and creepy moustache and was so thankful that at the end of the 1 1/2 hour production that I had remembered all the steps etc.
It was only afterwards when mum commented on how much I looked like I'd enjoyed myself that I had that uh-oh moment. All the way through I had been grinning from ear to ear - not exactly the menacing Hook I was supposed to be.
And so endeth my acting/dancing career...huge sighs from all around!
September 28, 2008 | Reply
I have never been any good at dancing, but somehow managed to pass the audition to be a Kit Kat girl in the school production of Cabaret! A professional dancer came in to train us up, and I really couldn't do it. Luckily I got chicken pox half way through rehearsals and returned the day before opening night to find myself fortunately demoted to the Chorus which only required some singing and pretending to be drunk, both of which I could manage. :) The production remains in my mind as it was the only time I shared a stage with the (now famous) actors Nick Burns and Tom Chambers, both of whom I was at school with, and the latter now featuring in the current series of Strictly Come Dancing.
September 28, 2008 | Reply
It's hard to pick one dancing memory because I dance pretty much all the time. Sometimes I don't even know I'm doing it. Like the time I was waiting for a delayed train on a deserted station platform late at night.
It was chilly, so I started fidgeting to keep warm, and pretty soon the fidget became a jive, and there I was dancing away to the music in my head, when the train pulled in. There were some surprised faces at the train windows!