|
 ***
From the time when, as an eight-year-old girl, she saw
the movie Fame, Victoria wanted to be a star. There
was a line from the title song that stayed with her -
´I'm gonna live for ever, I'm gonna learn how to fly´.
With this extraordinary book she gives us the chance
to follow her on her journey from lonely teenager to
international star; to fly alongside her.
****
SECONDARY SCHOOL
"While everybody else was mucking about and
gossiping with their friends, I was stood on my own in
a corner of the playground in a puddle with Paddington
Bear coat."
****
YOUNG STARS OF TOMORROW
"It turned out that Emma, later in the Spice
Girls, was also in the jazz section that year -with me
in a number called ´Reet Petite´- but I never knew
her there. Because she had her little group of
friends, and I had my little group of friends. You
wouldn't know everybody."
****
DOREEN BIRD
"I did get to Doreen Bird, which was my second
choice. I left school with five GCSEs and the cookery
prize. (Yes, you cynics who believe that poor old Posh
can't even boil an egg, the cookery prize, do you
hear?)"
****
BANDS
"Then one Wednesday, just after Christmas it must
have been, I saw this advert in the Stage, so small
you could have easily missed it. ´Girl singers wanted
for pop group´. And a London phone number. Not
exactly the West End and not exactly a musical. But
why not?"
"And the next day he (Steve Andrews) called. If I
was interested he´d like to have me in the band. I
was really exited."
"There were five of us, three girls and two boys,
including this Steve. There was Natasha, who I'd known
at Laine´s. She was the usual Laine´s type, tall and
thin. Then there was another Natasha, a black girl who
was a really good singer. (Funny that, two Natashas.)
And as well as Steve there was Nick, a good bit older
than the rest of us, in his thirties. He'd done a bit
of dancing, and a bit of modeling. Everyone was OK,
but not outstanding."
"Then in the middle of March I was reading the
Stage over breakfast, and spotted an ad for another
band.
WANTED
RU 18-23 with the ability to sing/dance?
RU streetwise, outgoing, ambitious, dedicated?
Heart Management Ltd are a wisely successful
Music Industry Management Consortium currently
forming a choreographed, singing/dancing
all female Pop Act for a Record Recording Deal.
Auditions on 27 March 1994 at Dance Works
opposite Selfridges, 11-4
****
GERI HALLIWELL IN AUDITION IN NOMIS STUDIOS
"They're (Bob and Chris Herbert) already halfway
through seeing people when this girl comes crashing
through the double doors, half tripping up on what
look like Vivienne Westwood platform shoes, an
original sixties handbag spilling make-up and keys all
over the place. We all turn and stare. She's wearing
this purple coat with marabou feathers round the neck
and underneath she's got on a pair of really really
tight deep-purple seventies-style Farrahs, slightly
flared. And this auburn hair half up and half down,
loads of make-up, very high cheekbones, sparkly eyes,
brilliant skin. She was really really tiny, really
skinny and obviously very very scatty. In fact a bit
bloody weird. This was Geri. I recognised her from a
month or so before when we'd both done an audition for
a film called Tank Girl.
****
TANK GIRL AUDITION BEFORE BAND AUDITION
"So I'm sitting in the foyer waiting with Geri,
and we're having a chat and all of sudden she
disappears and then comes back with a box of popcorn.
And she's stolen it. She had to do it, she tells me,
because she has a low sugar level and no money. So she
offers me some of this popcorns, and I say, ´No,
thank you.´ Not because I don't want any, but because
I'm just too scared. So then this woman comes over and
starts shouting at me, for some reason thinking that I
had nicked it. And I can feel my face go bright red,
and obviously I can´t say anything about Geri, so I
just say, ´No, I didn't. It wasn't me, I swear.´Over
and over. Then she goes and Geri carried on popping
the popcorn into her mouth, grinning. And there´s me,
so square I wouldn't even take any of this popcorn
because I don't want to be seen eating stolen
property."
****
AUDITION, IN GROUPS, MELANIE BROWN
"Geri wasn't in our group, but there was this mad
mixed-race girl called Melanie Brown. I remember
thinking she was really really beautiful: lovely
little figure, nice pair of boobs, perfect skin, all
this black curly hair. She was wearing a
cream-coloured top and a little cream A-line skirt
with buttons up the front. She had a very strong North
Country accent and was very outgoing and confident. In
fact she was a bit frightening, if I'm really
honest."
****
AUDITION, GERI HALLIWELL
"So it was back to our little rehearsal room; not
the best place to learn a dance, particularly when the
person learning isn't a dancer. It turned out Geri
hadn't even some to the original audition. She was a
complete blagger - just said she was ill and pleaded
to be fast-tracked to the recall. But you could see
what it was about her - all this marabou around her
neck and all this red hair - she was completely mad,
completely over the top. The kind of Yes-I´ve-climbed-Mount-Everest-I´ve
done everything kind of person you'd want to hang out
with. And, in actual fact, she had lived a lot more
than the rest of us. She´d lived in a squat, she'd
worked in Turkey and Majorca. She'd been around. The
rest of us were fresh out of college."
****
AUDITION, MELANIE CHISHOLM
"A week later we were back again in Shepherd´s
Bush. I had expected it to be the same five, but it
wasn't. The Welsh girl with the great voice wasn't
there, instead there was a girl who said she knew me
called Melanie Chisholm. She had a Liverpool accent
and I genuinely couldn't remember ever having seen her
before. She told me that she'd been to Doreen Bird's,
the college I would have gone to if I hadn't got a
place at Laine´s. She was soft, and seemed like a
really nice caring person. She was wearing a black
A-line skirt with buttons on the front, a tight black
top, hair all scraped back and a bright red
lipstick."
****
AUDITION, FIVE GIRLS
"So we're standing round the piano and first we
sing individually. Melanie B was very confident, but
then she was already quite a professional; she'd been
in Coronation Street and Emmerdale Farm. Melanie C,
who had been at the original audition but missed the
recall because she'd had something the matter with her
tonsils, was a good natural singer, generally a lot
more controlled and sounded a lot more trained than
the rest of us. Whereas Geri was more
Here-We-are-Standing-in-a-Pub-type thing with the
husky voice to go with it. I was more Take me to the
Music Hall. Geri didn't have an outstanding talent,
but she could belt something out, and she was louder
than me. Pure personality. Michelle had a good voice,
but it was not poppy at all. And I remember thinking,
Well, if it's four, then I stand a better chance than
Michelle, my main reason being that I could dance and
she couldn't."
****
A WEEK TOGETHER
"´We'd like you to spend a week together,´
Chris explained. They had booked rooms in a guest
house just outside Windsor, and there was a studio not
far away. Everything would be paid for."
"That week I was happy in a way I had never
imagined possible. Every morning we'd pile into a car
that came to collect us and go working on our dancing
and our singing. For the first time in my life I was
with people who wanted to know me and liked me and I
had something in common with. We never stopped
laughing. I'd always been quite quiet and reserved.
And already I'd had more laugh with them than I'd had
with anyone I could remember."
****
GERI HALLIWELL, BEST FRIEND
"My dad came down to pick me up. As Geri lived
quite near us, in Watford, we gave her a lift back. Me
and Geri had shared a room and, although she was
completely mad, we got on really well. Although our
taste in clothes was different - I was designer, Geri
was vintage - we were both into style in our own way.
The great thing about Geri was that she never did
things by halves - she would almost become a
character. Like eighties, seventies, or sixties. It
made no difference if we were going to the studio,
Tesco's, or out to a club. Geri would dress in
whatever character she had decided she was going to be
that particular day. She was totally styled all the
time, and almost knew how to dress like a pop star
even before she was one. In fact it was only a time
wore on that she got more casual because we barely had
time to go to the toilet, let alone go shopping. We
said goodbye with promises to keep in touch ´whatever
happens´. Geri was the first person I had ever felt I
could say, this is my best friend."
****
MAIDENHEAD
"Maidenhead was another try-out, Chris explained
when he called me, but this time longer. We would work
on our voices and routines during the day and live
together in this house to see how we got on
together."
"There were two and a half bedrooms; I shared the
biggest with Michelle. It had a light blue carpet and
a yellowy floral wallpaper, white wardrobes and white
sideboard. Nice, but not matching quilts. The two Mels
had to share a double bed. We called it the ´sex room´
because it had pink walls, a reddy coloured carpet and
Mel B put a red bulb in the main light. No lampshade.
Geri had a room that was little more than a cupboard.
It didn't even have a proper bed, only a mattress.
There was only one bathroom and Mel B used to irritate
us all because she hogged it, lying in the bath for
hours singing Zhane songs such as ´Groove Thang´."
****
WEIGHT
"Chic asked us down to his house in Bray, which
backed on to the Thames, to have a swim in his
pool."
"It was when we were swimming at his house that
he first had a go about my weight. ´Do us a favour,
Vic,´ he said giving me the once-over in my swimming
costume. ´Lose a couple of pounds, will ya?´
I wished I could just disappear, I felt so terrible.
But anyway, I told myself, I wasn't any bigger than
Mel C was I? A few days later, Mel C told me he'd said
the same thing to her."
****
MICHELLE
"The dancing came easily to me and the two Mels,
but for Michelle and Geri it was uphill all the way.
Michelle had a real problem with rhythm. Nothing we
did seemed to make it easier. So when we were dancing
we'd be shouting at her, and clapping at her legs. But
it was hopeless: she had less rhythm than a cement
mixer. She had an all-right voice, but it wasn't poppy
- it was what you might call cruise-ship operatic. In
a way we were a bit cruel to Michelle, but then she
let herself up for it. When things got though, instead
of knuckling down, she'd remember her tan needed a
top-up and go out into the garden. Also it didn't help
that she came from a very different background from
the rest of us. My family might been better off than
the other girls´ families, but basically we had a lot
in common. Michelle was different. She lived in Oxford
and had a place at university. She didn't think the
same way we did. She didn't have the dream."
"Yes, it was frustrating knowing we could have
moved on more quickly if we hadn´t been held back by
two of the group, but we could forgive Geri - at least
she was trying. Whereas Michelle just couldn't be
arsed. First we talked about it amongst ourselves, but
in the end we decided we had to say something to Bob
and Chris. They agreed. The sun-worshipper, as we
called her, would have to go."
****
EMMA BUNTON
"We knew we had to find somebody else. Even
though Michelle hadn't worked, five felt right.
Michelle had looked the part but inside she had been
wrong. What we needed was somebody like us - loud,
gutsy, ruthless workaholics - but blonde. Did we know
anybody like that? No we didn't. But Pepe (singing
teacher, Pepe Lemer) did. A couple of years back she
had taught a girl called Emma Bunton. And during the
break she got hold of her address from the school
where she'd taught her, and asked he to get in touch.
Then Emma met Bob, Chris and Chic. They asked her to
come and spend some time with us to see if she fitted
in and if her voice sat comfortably with the rest of
us."
****
TOUCH
"Finally it was Us. Or ´Touch´, as Bob, Chris
and Chic had decided we should be called."
"I quite liked Touch."
****
MEETING EMMA BUNTON
"We decided we should meet Emma at the station,
so we piled into Geri's car. It was a really sunny
afternoon and Geri had on hot pants, and this tight
little white and red stripey top that she still wears
now, her hair up in pigtails, black and white stripey
socks and big platform shoes. This was a French day;
all she needed was some onions around her neck and a
bike and she'd be away. Anyway, typical Geri parks on
a double yellow line and says she'll run in and get
Emma while we stay in the car to fend off traffic
wardens. It's funny now to think that's where the five
of us first met. I can see it now: Emma walking
towards us with her mum, wearing a little white dress,
white knee-socks and trainers, blonde shoulder-length
hair, really clear skin and a really big smile - like
she'd been to stage school, and she had: six years at
Sylvia Young. And she looked so young. In fact, she
was the youngest, although she had more working
experience than the rest of us put together. She'd
done Grange Hill and EastEnders. Within a few hours of
meeting Emma we all gelled. A few looks, a few nods.
We knew this was right. When Emma moved to Maidenhead
it was the first time she'd lived away from home. She
and her mum were very close - the first time at the
station they were holding hands. She took over
Michelle's place in my room. Like me, Emma found it
hard being away from her family and we both used to go
home every weekend. As she lived in Finchley I always
gave her a lift."
****
TIDY MEL C
"Even more tidy than me was Melanie C. She was
very houseproud. At the beginning she used to do all
the tidying and cleaning. We ended up having a rota:
who would do the clearing up, who would sweep the
stairs, who would do the hoovering and who would clean
the toilets, and we would take it turns, although Mel
C always ended up doing more than anybody else. If she
saw that the washing-up needed doing, she'd just do
it, even though it wasn't her turn. She couldn't stand
mess."
****
NAME
"Touch, like the name of Bob and Chris's
management company Heart, was too touchy-feely, we had
decided. we wanted something edge. What about High
Five? Plus Five? Five Alive? One sounded druggy, one
sounded extra-large and one had copyright problems as
it was a fruit juice. But the idea stuck. Later Bob
and Chris went on to manage a boyband: 5ive."
"It was Geri who had the brainwave. She and Mel C
had just come back from the gym - Mel C was a fitness
fanatic and Geri was a thinness fanatic. Geri came
bursting in through the lounge foor.
´I've got it.
´What?´
´Spice.`
`Spice what?´
Was this a knock knock joke?
´Our name. Spice. It's got five letters and it's us.
One word for five different tastes. So? What do you
think?´"
****
FEELING LEFT OUT and WANNABE
"In those early days I still felt a bit left out.
I knew that I wanted to be part of the mix, but the
others were so much more confident than me: Emma with
years of work under her belt, Mel B being so totally
fearless, Mel C taking a melody and making it really
sing, Geri I'm-all girl-look-at-me. It was so
intimidating - like standing in a room with no clothes
on. And particularly during the early sessions, I
didn't have as much input as I did later. In fact with
´Wannabe´ I missed most of it. We'd been working
with Matt and Biff all week, but by the time Friday
night arrived it was only half done - so everyone
agreed to carry on over the weekend. But I had a
problem. Some relation of Mark's (Victoria's boyfriend
at that time) was getting married and he put so much
pressure on me to go to this bloody wedding. I said to
the girls that I really didn't want to miss anything,
but they said: ´No, no, no, you must go.´ ´I'll
call you,´ Geri promised. Geri and I had just bought
these mobile, which were so big that they could have
done duty as coshes. ´Don't worry. I'll let you know
exactly what we're doing. You won't miss out on
anything.´ But I did. The wedding was somewhere near
Torquay and from the moment Geri calls me I'm
thinking, What am I doing? It wasn't as if it was
anything to do with me. It was Mark's bloody family.
She was great, calling me every five minutes saying,
´What do you think of this idea, what do you think of
that idea?´ But I just couldn't bear not being there.
Because whatever they said about how it didn't matter,
it did matter. Saying `Yes, I like that´ or ´Not
sure about that´ down the phone is not the same. I
could have cried. I did cry, later. Because I knew, we
all knew, that this song was so perfect. That ´Wannabe´
was us, that this was it. And it id make a difference,
because by the time it came to recording, performing
and singing it, all the parts had been divided up
between the rest of them. Yes, I did few backing
vocals but nothing major. And every time we performed
it I just felt like a gooseberry standing at the back
not doing anything. "
****
MARK WOOD and COREY HAIM
"He (Mark) dumped me. Why? My childish behaviour,
he said. I should have been delighted but I was in
total shock."
"Looking back it's hard to work out whether I
really fancied him (Corey Haim) or if I was just a bit
of a sad fan. Anyway, it was just what I needed - I
used to go round to his hotel or he used to come up to
our house. But then Mark came round to my mum's house
to pick something up - after all, he had lived there
for over three years - and he saw a photo lying on the
kitchen table that my dad had taken of me and Corey in
the garden. He went totally berserk. Suddenly all the
stuff about me being childish and him crying and
bellowing, begging me to give him another chance.
What's that, Mark? Another chance? I don't think so.
Funny how much better it makes you feel when you're
the one doing the dumping."
****
REAL VICTORIA COMES OUT
"It was two years since I had first met the girls
and I had changed. When we started out all the other
girls would leap on a table and sing and dance,
whereas I'd always be the one to say the table might
collapse and perhaps we oughtn't to do that. But
they had tapped into my brain and discovered the real
me, the person I am now. If I hadn't met the four
Spice Girls, I'd be completely different. They brought
out the daring side, the say-what-you-think side. If
you want something go and get it. If you want to wear
something, so what if no one else is wearing it, just
wear what you want to wear. Do your make-up and your
hair how you want, and sod everything."
****
PROBLEMS WITH BOB, CHRIS AND CHIC
"The problem was that they (Bob, Chris and Chic)
had the key. Not the key to the studio, the key to our
future - the precious tape of the songs. Bob and Chris
guarded it like it was a winning lottery ticket. Which
in many ways it was. Friday. The stars were in perfect
conjunction according to Patrick Walker - we bought
the Evening Standard every day just to read him - it
was now or never. Geri and the two Mels would go to
the management offices in Maidenhead and while the two
Mels did the decoy bit keeping Chris and Bob occupied,
Geri would somehow manage to wangle the tape.
Meanwhile me and Emma would go to the studios in
Wolking to collect some things we had there till we
got the all-clear from Geri. Now we really were a
gang. My phone rang. Geri. The deed was done."
****
ELLIOT KENNEDY
"We knew Bob and Chris had set up a session the
following Tuesday with a writer called Elliot Kennedy
in Sheffield. The problem was we'd never met the
guy."
"Geri phoned about four on Saturday afternoon. ´We've
found him and he's up for it. So get up here as quick
as you can.´"
"Elliot Kennedy was the kind of person you meet
and feel you've known all your life. His house was a
three-bedroomed semi - quite big and he'd turned the
dining room into a recording studio. The next day
we're just talking about what we want to do, bouncing
a few ideas around."
"Living and working with Elliot was the best
thing that could have happened to us at that time. It
took our mind off What Happens Now. The first song we
wrote with Elliot was ´Love Thing´ which is on the
first album - a great song - especially after what I'd
just been through with Mark - full of lines about
broken hearts and not going down that road again, and
how my plans no longer include you, you loser."
****
MARC FOXE
"Geri had spoken to someone called Marc Foxe.
He'd given her his card and said if we ever needed
help give him a call."
"Our routine was very businesslike. Marc Foxe,
who was in music publishing, would make the
appointments and we'd take turns driving, either me or
Geri."
"Marc Foxe had put us in touch with Paul Wilson
and Andy Watkins, writers and producers known as
Absolute. They had worked with people like Mica Paris
and Lisa Stansfield. The first song we did with them
was ´Something Kinda Funny´. Whereas Matt and Biff
were more poppy, Absolute were more soul. They went on
to produce ´Love Thing` and ´Say You'll be There´,
the two songs we did with Elliot Kennedy."
****
SIMON FULLER
"Andy told us that they had sent Simon a tape of
´Something Kinda Funny´. Simon Fuller started as a
publishing scout for Chrysalis Records in the
mid-eighties. His company was called 19
Management."
"Compared to most prospective managers we'd seen,
there was something soft about Simon, even a bit camp.
Everything was understated, including his voice. He
knew how to get control of the room in a calm way by
speaking really low."
"Yet the truth is that we went to him that
morning in Battersea with our first album well
underway and the image already in place. We were there
for about an hour. Here was someone who was totally
professional, sensitive, and who listened. "
"There was no contest. Simon Fuller it was."
"So. May 1995. We had our manager. Now all we
needed was a record company."
****
STUART BILTON
"No sooner had Simon Fuller come into our lives
than I met Stuart Bilton."
"I met Stuart in a bar in Broxbourne where my
sister and her friends went all the time. He was a
real charmer and he made me laugh. Stuart was one of
those boys that everyone fancied: good-looking, wore
really nice clothes."
****
BOB, CHRIS AND CHIC
"We all decided it was only fair that Bob, Chris
and Chic were paid back what they had invested in us,
including what it cost to record our first three
demos."
****
VIRGIN
"Most new bands are so desperate to sign with
anyone that they end up getting screwed, but in taking
his time, leaking a little bit of information here, a
snippet of a track there, Simon had got the whole
record industry talking about us."
"Virgin was a bit of a wild card. Strangely, they
didn't have any other British pop bands in those days
- but our thinking was that this was an advantage,
there'd be no chance they'd get complacent, as other
record labels might. They had too much to prove. In
the end we decided to go with them"
"Days passed and we still hadn't signed. There
was no rush, Simon said. We had to get it right."
"London Records thought they were still in the
loop - and to be fair, until we signed, they were. So
in a final attempt to seduce us away from Virgin,
London Records threw us a party on the Thames. The
problem was the date, 13 July 1995 - the day we were
supposed to be signing with Virgin. So we tell Tracy
Bennett what's going on - we'd all decided we didn't
want to play those kind of games. And he says, what
the hell, come anyway. So it is just like a seduction:
majorly wild, loudspeakers pumping, wine flowing,
fantastic food and us. Time was ticking on. We were
meant to be signing with Virgin. But, hey! We were on
a boat in the middle of the Thames having a brilliant
time high on adrenalin - all this for us! I don't
remember whose idea the blow-up dolls were, but it was
totally spontaneous. We persuaded Camilla, our PA, to
go to the Ann Summers sex shop on Charing Cross Road
and buy five of these things, spray the hair relevant
colours, put them in our cars and take them to Virgin
where they'd think it was us, open the doors, and hey
presto! If Virgin didn't know yet who they were
dealing with, they would now. I have no memory of
getting off the boat, nor of the journey to Ladbroke
Grove where Virgin had their head office, nor signing,
nor getting the cheque. But I can remember the party.
I can remember chucking the blow-up dolls over the
bridge into the canal. I was totally drunk."
"I was so drunk I fell over and the other girls
ripped my knickers off and threw them out of the
window."
"I have a vague memory of hanging out of the
window and shouting to the world, ´We've just signed
with Virgin!´"
****
SPICE GIRLS
"Our first public outing was the Brits in
February 1996. We were there as guests of Virgin,
sitting at a table with two blokes who were part of a
band called the Brotherhood."
"The music industry knew Virgin had this new girl
band called Spice, but no more than that. And you
could see people turning their heads as we passed, and
hear the buzz - who are they? And you'd hear the
answer: those Spice girls. That's how the name got
changed: people asking if they'd heard ´those Spice
girls´. Or saying, ´Are you the Spice girl?` So
Spice Girls we became."
****
EATING DISORDER
"I continued to try to lose weight. If all went
according to plan we'd be doing a lot of television
and Geri was always telling me that television makes
you look fatter. Miss Laine had made clear that she
thought I was overweight, but to be honest I didn't
care that much. When Miss Laine sent me to the back of
the line, I just accepted that I was fat. But the
truth was I wasn't. I was just a bit bigger than the
other skeletons in the place."
"Geri never told me in so many words that I was
fat. She knew that Chic had told me and Mel C that we
could both do with ´losing a couple of pounds´ so
she started encouraging us both to get up early with
her and go jogging, to ´get into shape´. So why
not?"
"Then it moved to food. I started gradually. Geri
would say things like don't put sauces on food, that
low-fat things were just as good and I could try just
not eating quite so much. It was Geri who introduced
me to Slimfast, a milkshake drink that fills you up
and stops you feeling hungry. The trouble is, when you
start thinking like that, it is hard to stop,
particularly if you´re an all-or-nothing person like
I am."
"I begin living on vegetables, and nothing else.
But it never occurred to me for a moment that I might
have an eating disorder because everybody knew people
with eating disorders were thin, and I was still the
same size as I had always been. I was just eating
healthily and getting myself into shape."
"Japan was crunch time. I couldn't get my
Frosties, there were no normal vegetables. So I just
stopped eating. And all of a sudden I found I was
losing weight. And I'm thinking, if I can't eat the
food let's turn it into a positive thing. So every
evening I'd spend an hour doing sit-ups, crunches,
aerobic exercises. I was getting thinner and thinner
every day. I was shinking. And the excitement at
getting thinner quite took away the hunger. Even the
other girls started to notice, but they were easy to
fob off. Because when you have an eating disorder you
can fool people. Fooling people becomes part of the
buzz."
"My mum realized I hadn't been eating. I agreed
to go and see the doctor."
"I did start eating more, but the damage was
done. All I would eat was vegetables, fruit, chicken
and fish."
****
WANNABE
"´Wannabe´ was released on 8 July 1996. We'd
done weeks of promotion. The following Sunday we were
number 3. Our first record and we were in the top
ten."
"Back to Japan where ´Wannabe´ was heading up
the charts. I remember we were all having dinner in
this Japanese restaurant in the hotel. I had a long
down-to-the-floor dress that I'd borrowed from Louise
to take away with me. It was Sunday and Camilla, our
PA, came in and said she'd just heard from Simon we
were number 1. That was totally unbelievable. Number 3
had been amazing enough."
"´Wannabe´ broke all records for a debut
single. It stayed at number 1 for seven weeks. ´Say
You'll Be There´gave us our second number 1 and
Ladbrokes were already making ´2 Become 1´ favourite
for that ´all important´ Christmas number 1 - a
record that hadn't even been released yet. ´2 Become
1´ became the fastest-selling single since ´Band Aid´.
That made three in row. Jackpot."
****
FAMOUS
"People were starting to recognize us when we
went out."
"I could just hear all those arseholes at my
school, the girls who found it hard to keep their legs
together, who called me names, who I could just hear
saying to their friends, Oh yes, I was a friend of
posh Spice, we did this and we did that. And the boys
who called me frigid, they were probably saying how
they'd slept with me. Warning: if you ever hear
anybody saying they were friends of mine at school
then you will know that these people are lying. I'd
always said I'd show them and I had. And I could just
hear Miss Laine telling her girls how I'd been at
Laine´s and she'd always known how talented I was.
And wondered if any of them would remember the truth,
or would they just blank out what they had really said
and really done? I wouldn't blank them out. I would
never forget."
****
|
(footer
is being worked on)