Dido Mixes up the hits

SHE is currently the biggest-selling woman singer in the world. Her debut album, No Angel, nestles in 11 million homes around the globe, and she was crowned Best British Female at the Brit Awards-in-February. The Islington-born singer, who plans to take a well-deserved break after a period of intensive overseas touring, is spending time at home in London. She is also relishing the chance to take stock of her remarkable year.

'I feel more confident now,' Dido tells me, as I catch up with her on her way home from shopping.

'I know I'm in the right job — something I've never felt before. My life has changed, but not too drastically. I'm very conscious about trying to keep everything as normal as possible.

'It's nice being back in London, because I don't have loads of people doing things for me. I don't want to take the ordinary things out of my life. If I did, I'd have nothing to write about.

'I could never write about having money in the bank or being a celebrity who everyone hates.

'I write from an emotional point of view— I'm still the same emotional wreck that I was before all this.' But it can be difficult sometimes. When I'm touring, I get into full-on performer mode at around 9.30pm.

'When I'm at home, I find that I'm still peaking at around the same time during the first week off. And that's not appropriate when you're in the middle of dinner.'

Dido was 30 in December.

HAVING temped in a law firm and studied at the Guildhall School Of Music before embarking on a pop career, Dido is grateful that success has arrived at a time when she feels able to cope with its atpressures.

'I'd be a nightmare if this had happened to me when I was 20,' she says. 'I was seriously unstable back then, and I wouldn't have been able to handle everything. I'd probably be on drugs by now, so it's good for me that I've done other jobs. If I had only ever known the pop business, I'd be a strange person.

'Most of my best mates are from old jobs, which helps to keep me down to earth.'

The No Angel album, originally released in Britain in October 2000, has been repackaged as a limited-edition double CD.

The new version features storming dance mixes of the singles Here With Me, Thank You and Hunter, plus video clips and one superb new track, the folky Christmas Day, which Dido describes as 'a depressing festive song — it's certainly not Jingle Bells'.

But she is also looking forward. She will be working hard on a sequel to No Angel.

'I've already started working on the album,' she says, 'I've been writing on tour and I've performed four or five of the new songs live. I want to make an amazing second record.'

On a personal note. Dido is getting married to her boyfriend Bob Page, an entertainment lawyer this year.

'We have been together for six years,' she says. 'So getting married isn't going to change things too much. It is the rest of our lives that's important.‘

I’d imagine that the ceremony will be pretty small and cool.

'As a lawyer, Bob knows a lot about the music business. But I'm probably a complete nightmare as a girlfriend because I am so obsessed with what I do.

'Whenever I have an idea for a song, I want to go off and write it down. Sometimes this is a 24-hours-a-day job.'

From the "Daily Mail"