Yo! Kerry!

On wednesday evening, at around 7pm, I was rummaging around in some library boxes at work when I received a call from one of my colleagues, Carolynne:

"I'm only telling you this because you're a celebrity junkie like me, but the new Yo! Sushi restuarant is opening tonight, and there's loads of paparazzi outside..."

Naturally, since my job as teagirl is not only to make tea but also to celebrity spot, and since Celeb Spots of the Week has suffered a drought recently, on my next run I took a detour round the corner to see what was going on.

To be honest.... not much was going on. It seemed like a nice set up for a launch party, with street cooking, traditional Japanese drums and a small red carpet. I waited around for about 10 minutes, and spotted a couple of minor celebs:

Hardeep Singh Kohli - Best known for his role as a roving reporter on The One Show, and probably even better know for his suspension from the show following a complaint made against him by a female colleague for "inappropriate behaviour."

Clare Nasir and Chris Hawkins - GMTV weather girl and producer, and her BBC 6Music DJ husband.

The "highlight" - and to be honest, if this is the highlight of your busines launch party, then you really need to reevaluate a few things - was the emergence of Kerry Katona from the restaurant, leaving in a black Range Rover. To be fair to the girl, she looked bloody fabulous; obviously in shape, wearing a great outfit, lovely hair and makeup...

Then, once she was in the car and they began to drive off, three paps jumped on their mopeds to chase after her. It turns out she was heading to the premiere of JLo's new movie, The Back-Up Plan, but even so, it struck me as kind of sad that they'd hang around a - let's be honest - crappy sushi restuarant to snap one C-List celebrity, only to jump straight back onto their bikes to then follow her around for rest of the evening.

Sad, yes. But if I was going to be offered a shed-load of money for one photo, then maybe I wouldn't judge so harshly....!

No ordinary lunch break.

I have something exciting to share.

I stumbled across something yesterday that I had been completely unaware of - probably due to the head-in-the-cloud-edness that I've been experiencing lately.

The discovery was this.

Yes, Walkers have brought out a range of 15 new flavours in time with the World Cup. Ok, so maybe it's not all that exciting... but hey, it brightens up my lunch hours spent alternating between ham, chicken and rice concoctions...

So yesterday I had myself a bag of 'French Garlic Baguette', and I have to tell you, they were pretty darned good. A few seconds after finishing my first crisp, I had the distinct feeling that I had not simply eaten a garlic baguette flavoured crisp, but actually the garlic baguette itself. Extraordinary. I also tried the 'Brazilian Salsa' flavour, curtesy of a colleague, and they were pretty good too.

So my plan now is to make the most of this exciting period in crisp history, and munch my way through as many of the new flavours as possible. Gotta say, not really feeling the 'Scottish Haggis' or 'Australian BBQ Kangaroo' too much, amongst others. But hey, maybe someone could sponsor me for some charity, and maybe then I'll endure the likes of 'Welsh Rarebit'....

Yeah ok, maybe not.

Today.... I'm not sure, but I think I'm gonna go for 'Italian Spaghetti Bolognaise'.

Or maybe 'Spanish Chicken Paella'.

Or 'Japanese Teriyaki Chicken'...........

Lef'... Right... Lef' Right Lef'...

"I'm shitting myself."
"Me too. It's good though, to do something that scares the shit out of you every so often."
"Yeah, that's true."
"It'll be fine."
"....I'm shitting myself."
"Yeah. Me too."

11.30am on Saturday, and my friend Katherine and I are sat in Cafe Nero, nervously sipping a cup of tea each. We've made the mistake of meeting up an hour before our first hip hop dance class at Pineapple Studios, something that we've both been dying to do for a really long time, but only just had the guts.

Here's just a small example of my thought process at that moment in time.....

"What the hell am I doing?
It was all well and good planning to go to a class, but now I actually have to do it...
But this is something I've been wanting to do for such a long time, and it is only a beginner class.
I can't bloody learn choreography. Cheryl Cole's music video is one thing, a class with a trained dancer......
It could be really fun, though. I do love dancing.
But the last time I went to a dance class it was full of prissy schoolgirls and their cliques....
It's not gonna be like that here though, it's just a class, I'm not enrolling for anything.
What the hell......."

I imagine Katherine's mind was running through similar things.

So we spent that hour psyching ourselves up for the class, then scaring the shit out of each other, then back to the pep talks, then back to the doubt. It probably wasn't the best idea. But anyway, at 11.45 we left Cafe Nero and somehow dragged ourselves around the corner to Pineapple.

I've gotta say it....... It wasn't half as bad as I expected. Our teacher was an awesome Spanish dude called Xavi Monreal (YouTube him!), who was focused and a great teacher, and also pretty funny. There were probably about 30 people in the class, ranging from fairly good dancers right down to absolute beginners, and everyone was so focused on learning the choreo that you didn't have to worry about what you looked like. It was just really fun. Initially I was concentrating so hard on the steps that I forgot I was there to dance and not some sort of lighthearted military drill. Once I relaxed a bit I started to run through the steps in my own usual style, and it actually started to look alright!

So... all in all, a good experience. Most importantly it was a good laugh. Especially towards the end when we had to just dance around the room with each other doing the "UFO". Katherine was right, you do need to do something that scares the shit out of you every so often, it's good for you. And with every new thing that you do it probably doesn't get any less scary. But what would be the point in that?

And before you ask, no... I did not see Louie Spence!