"Dark Angel! - The Unseen Side of Louise."

"Louise and Jayne are in the Jacuzzi," says the very nice woman from Piccadilly's Kitsch Cafe De Paris. "Down there on the right. Just go right in, they won't mind."

Louise, Sexiest Woman of the Last Decade(TM) and fellow Sky cover star Jayne Middelmiss sharing a hot-tub? And welcoming spectators? Just hold on to that image for a sec....Got it? Good. Because, life sucking the way it does, both women are fully clothed, the jacuzzi's been drained to make way for comfy chairs and we find ourselves - in splace of rapidly fading images of aquatic titillation - merely sitting in on the end of an O-Zone interview.

The filming's over and Sky dominates the conversation: the two girls are, naturally enough, complimenting each other on their resepective cover appearances before moving on to their next engagements. Jayne's looking forward to giving Robbie Williams a hard time about his now legendary "cock Shot" photos, while Louise is equally excited about her option, namely Sky's fashion shoot, followed by 30 minutes of trying to gracefully sidestep impertinent questions about her engagement to a certain professional footballer who we won't name here. Well, not unless she does...

"Can you call Jamie and let him know I'm doing another interview?" says Louise with perfect timing to her agent. "And then after that I'm going to look at a new flat."

A new flat, huh? Somewhere a bit bigger, perhaps?

"No, not really."

With a garden, maybe? Somewhere to, I don't know, kick a ball around?

"Er, no. I don't kick balls myself."

But you know a man who does....

Her smile is good-matured and the bottom line is that Louise is just a too nice to tell an interviewer where to stick his none-of-your-damn-business personal questions. "I don't lie to anyone about us having a relationship," she says cautiously, measuring every word, "and I don't want to see difficult, you know, 'Please don't ask me those questions' and so on, but I just feel my relationship with him is between us. Some things in life need to be kept private."

Fair enough, but privacy kind of flew out of the window earlier this year when the tabloids took it upon themselves to confirm what the world had long suspected, namely that Louise and Jamie Rednapp were finally, offically, engaged. Louise is quick to point out, however, that the story didn't come from the happy couple themselves: "We just got a phonecall saying, 'Well, is it true?' and I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by saying it's not, because common knowledge. Everyone deserves to get married," she continues with saintly patience, " I just want to do it when the time's totally right. I'd hope," she adds, "that by being honest with a person they'd show me some respect and not make all this such a big issue. Everyone homes in on it, I just hope that'll be the smallest part in the piece." Whoops. I think that means it's time to talk about the new album....

"It's more...complete than the first album," she smiles, introducing "Woman In Me", a selection of as perfect as you'd expect three masterpeices, "but it's still pop, and I don't see anything wrong with that. This whole 'cred' thing does my head in," she frowns. "You don't need a guitar to be credible. "Amoungst the ballards and dance numbers, one track, "Shut Up And Kiss Me", treads a rockier path, the song's title being delivered with a "You. Here. Now!" directness that will, inevitabley, fuel countless adolscents dominatrix-type fantasies - despite Louise's assertion that she's "crap" when it comes to pulling blokes.

"The good thing about music," she explains, rebuffing any all-talk-no-trousers accusations, "is that you can be someone else for three minutes, I mean, when I'm performing naked..." She sees the tabloid headlines flash before my eyes and restarts the sentance. "When I'm performing "Naked", the song, it's like tree-and- a-half minutes of getting into character, and I like that - being able to change your image without changing as a person.

" Louise as a person, it has to be said, has been on the recieving end of some pretty harsh comments from other celebrities, but has-so far-avoided any form or retaliation. "I wouldn't judge someone I'd never met, you know?" she says. "How can you tell what a person's like after meeting them backstage at a gig for a couple of seconds?

" It's this irrepressible niceness which has been seized upon by the press, desperate to locate - regardless of wheater it actually exists or not - Louise's "dark side". "people say, 'Come on, there must be another side to you.'" she laughs, "but honestly, what you see is what you get. I don't go home and stick pins in wax effigies of Toni Braxton or anything like that. "Tes, but there must be something...

"I'm horrible when I'm angry," she finally concedes. "That's my dark side. I mean, it takes a lot to make me angry, but I can be so nasty when I am. I think anyone who's experienced that would agree," she says, casting an anxious glance at her mum, Lynne, who's just arrived to accompany her daughter on the flat hunting expedition. Lynne lets Louise off the hook with a "Well, we can all be like that can't we?" disclaimer, and the talk turns to the Nurding clan.

Little brothers Sam (8) and Joe (11) are reaching that age where the "protector" gene kicks in, it seems. "Joe came home the other day," recalls Louise. "and said: 'They were saying horrible things about you in school today, but I told them none of it was true.' They're very protective." she beams. And, no doubt, they think it's brilliant to have a pop star for a big sister?

"They couldn't care less about what I do," she laughs. "They think it's more brilliant that I have a boyfriend who plays football." There's a wuick "No that dosen't mean you can ask me more footie questions" glance, and Louise starts poring excitedly over last month's issue of Sky, which has just arrived at the studio. "It's changed, hasn't it?" she decides. "It's not just women all the way through the mag, now. It's good that you're getting guys in." The photographer points out that she just flicked past some new shots of Jamie - and in the split seconds before she realises we're referring to Jamie Theakson, a worried frown flashes across her face. "Yeah," jokes the art editor, never one to miss a stirring opportunity, "We've got him surrounded by naked women.

" Jamie redknapp and a bevy of bare beauties - not such a bad idea, really "Jamie would love that," says Louise with the kind of sarky smile that suggests that his finacee, for one, would not be quiet so delighted. Surely the world's most frequently-cited sexiest person has no worries in that area? "That's a very flattering but...you never see photos of me with spots or bags under my eyes. But catch me on a normal day..." She's lying, of corse. "Besides," continues Louise, electing to finish on another non-truth, "most probabley next year I'll be off the list."

The Polaroids from today's shoot are passed around, and it's quiet clear to all that Louise's tenancy at the top of those polls is in no way threatened. "Today was a completly diffrent style," she says, "and I'm always up for trying new things."

Tonight, through, her no-holds-barred, up-for-it schedule consists of the less than rock'n'roll pleasures of viewing real esatates, then taking her mum "somewhere nice" for dinner. "Sevently percent of people in this industry don't live a rock'n'roll lifesyle," she claims in self-defence. "I'm not going to say I never enjoy going clubbing and having a good time, and I'm certainly not going to say I don't enjoy living a famous lifesyle, but I've never been extreme in that sense." She pauses, smailes and quietly adds, "Maybe that's what the future holds...."

We'll be watching. Just try to stop us!!!!

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