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My Greatest Mistake: Tim Hulse, Editor of Business Life magazine

Interview by Rebecca Armstrong
08 June 2004

"I'm going to the opening of a new club," says Kylie. "You wanna come with me?" "Love to," I say. Well, you would, wouldn't you? I was working for Esquire magazine and one of my duties was to go out on a "date" each month with a glamorous female celebrity. On this occasion, I'd flown to Paris to have dinner with Kylie Minogue at one of her favourite restaurants. The fact that we shared our table with her personal assistant gives you some idea of how seriously Kylie had decided to treat our "date". My attempts to engage her in any kind of meaningful conversation beyond topics such as her favourite colour met with little enthusiasm on her part and, as the meal progressed, I began to wonder with increasing panic what on earth I was going to write about. When she offered me the chance of going to a club with her, I practically bit her hand off.

Half an hour later we were exiting a taxi in a blitzkrieg of flashbulbs and I allowed myself a tingle of pleasure at the thought that the crowd of assembled onlookers might assume I was Kylie's latest beau. As students of Greek tragedy know, presumptuous thoughts like that can only end in trouble. Inside, we descended some stairs on to the packed dancefloor. Then something terrible happened. Kylie stopped, turned around to face me and began to dance. In fact, the word "dance" barely does justice to the dizzyingly accomplished routine into which she launched. And to make matters worse, everyone around us stepped back to form a circle. They were standing and watching.

Now I've never claimed to be a great dancer and the fact that I suddenly had an audience really didn't help. My feet seemed to be glued to the floor. Nevertheless, I gave it my best shot and sort of wiggled my hips a bit, my arms bent at right angles and clamped to my sides, my face paralysed in a rictus grin. Eventually, the music stopped and Kylie juddered to a halt.

"You're not really a dancer, are you?" she said.

Too true. I made my excuses and left.