Spice Girls: your task, should you choose to accept it, is to take 150 kids to Lapland, hang
with Santa, meet the Ice Queen, eat Rudolph, shake hands with pixies, shake tail-feathers at 'Doris Disco',
get road rage on a snow bike, and skid downhill on your bum. Oh, and be the nicely-smiling,
hardest-working band in showbiz...
The Spice Girls are excited: a reindeer is doing a poo. They're sat there, in the 270 minutes
of daily daylight, the temperature an unseasonable to degrees above freezing, just on the rim of the Arctic Circle,
in Lapland. "We want proper reindeer," they had insisted, "with antlers". And now they're perched on
sledges, Geri, Mel B, Mel C, Victoria, and Emma, staring at the arses of Rudolph, Donner, Blitzen,
Dancer and Prancer [or is it vice versa?] as the deer drags the dears through the snow.
"They're so sussed, those reindeer," says Mel c as the two-minute circuit through the woods comes to a
close. Seems that, after gamely cantering away from their handlers, as soon as they were out of sight,
the reindeer slowed up to a calm, chilled trot. Energy conservation in the frozen wastelands, and all that.
Ranulph Fiennes would understand.
The Spice Girls don't. They're here in Lapland for a speedy 24 hours, a pan-Oriental posse of
competition-winning kids, young relatives and hungry media trailing in their jetstream. Here for a bit
of a PR junket and a bit of snowy fun, too. In the course of the day and the night they will act as
trolley dollies, as Santa's little helpers, as gameshow hostesses, Nordic adventurers, MTV VJs, ice ice
babies, and big bloody kids. Mostly these will be down to the 24-hour party person that is Mel B.
Mostly, but not totally.
My spiciest man would have to be someone like Jamiroquai at the moment, because he's cool.
Even though his hair smells a bit, I'd imagine, underneath those sweaty hats." MEL B
Thursday afternoon. Gatwick Airport, London, England. A charter plane. On the runway.
One hundred and fifty-odd kids, top dogs in a series of contests held all over the shop by the
likes of Virgin, Asda, MTV and assorted local radio stations. Ten Spice nephew and nieces. Five
girls with the world at their feet, the tabloids at their doors, politicians in their ear, and
everyone else in their laps. Some blokes to fly the plane.
The Spice Girls are up front, in first class, obviously. Before long, though, they're flitting
up and down the aisles, helping serve coffee and juice, chewing the fat and pressing the flesh.
Geri spoon-feeds some kids their pudding. Victoria goes for a pee and people stop and stare.
Everyone gets their own bit of Spice.
Five hours later, after a stop-off in Gothenburg, Sweden for refuelling and to pick up more
competition winners, The Spice Express lands in Rovaniemi, Lapland. It is pitch-dark and blood-freezing.
It is grim. Still, Santa Claus and his little elves are waiting on the tarmac. The girls pose for pictures.
They will do this often.
All a-snowboard... A bus takes everyone to Santa Claus Village, ploughing thruogh the ice and
slush. It has stayed open late especially, with Mr Claus promising his elves, goblins and pixies
double-toys if they work after-hours. Forget the lather that followed Mel B's admiration for
Thatcherism, Victoria's fears over the Single European Currency, the news that Mel C once went to a
'wild drugs party', the revalation that Emma is not 18 but 20, or the shocker that Geri once took
her gear off in the woods... getting Santa to do overtime is the real marker of Spice Girls' hold
over The World '96/'97. Girl Power ahoy...
All the competition winners get their picture taken with the Phat Girls and the Fat Bloke.
"Can you say hello to Radio Mafia in Sweden?" says Radio Mafia from Sweden. "Hello Radio Mafia!"
say the Spice Girls. Then there are more interviews, more banal chatter and some snowball fights.
They will do this often, too.
"My spicy man is Ray Liotta from Goodfellas. And my spicy tip is 'do what you want, just
do it like a lady'. Even if you're wearing a boilersuit like this. My spicy tune is 'Optimistic'
by Sounds of Blackness." VICTORIA
The evening marches on. Everyone has changed into snowsuits. Purple and yellow for the Spice
Girls, red and blue for everyone else. Emma as befits her 'Cute Spice'/'Baby Spice'/'Sweet Spice'
appellation, is too small to fit in the purple'n'yellow combos, though, and reluctantly slips into a
red'n'blue affair.
The Girls gather in their hotel to be interviewed by MTV, to swear and to talk about boys.
"Yo yo yo, this is gangster rap, yo yo yo, you're watching the wrong kind of station," goes Geri.
"Pout, grind, oomph, kick," goes Mel B.
"No, it's not actually, it's the Spice Girls here," chirps Geri. "Y'awright? Scared you
for a minute, didn't we? You thought we'd turned one of those but we're just keeping warm."
"Er," say The Kids, "not quite sure what the connection between dayglo snow-suits and gangsta-rap is..."
"These are boiler-suits that we have to wear," 'explains' Mel B. "But I refuse to confirm completely
because I've got me own boots!"
"The brilliant thing about these boots is that they hide a multitude of sins," says Geri,
wrinkling her very pert nose. "If you're having a fat day, these are the best."
Then Geri and Mel B flash their bums at the camera. This is not a fat day.
"My spiciest man is Crispin [from MTV's Hanging Out]. And Davina [ditto], she's a babe.
Schwing! My spiciest tune is 'Cosmic Girl' by Jamiroquai. I can identify with that because I'm
off my nut, out of this planet!" GERI
A small convoy of couches takes everyone out of town to an igloo-restaurant - two large ice circles,
linked by a hallway, each with a frozen tree decked in fairy lights in the middle. Forget the crap
about Eskimos and the Arctic myth that igloos are daed cosy: the tables are made of ice; the stools
are made of wood and covered in fur; the temperature is made of hell frozen over.
And the food is made of Rudolph. "Eeeeurgh," says Emma - as befits her 'Cute Spice'/'Baby
Spice'/'Fussy Spice' kiddie-styled moniker, she don't like the salmon soup or reindeer steaks
on offer [she'd rather have fish fingers (mebbe)].
Still, everyone mingles and everyone's happy, despite the sub-zero and murky-grey atmosphere.
Then the Ice Queen turns up on a horse, some jolly Laplanders in native costume join the throng,
a flurry of flash-bulbs rent the night air, and Mel B decides that is will be a really good
idea to climb up the outside of the igloo and slide down again. Loadsa times. "Wooh!" she screeches,
"it's like Gladiators." She encourages Geri to do the same. Truly, Mel B is Tarzan as woman.
Clunk. Night has fallen even further. The competion-kids are tucked up in their
Lapp-bunks. Two-thirds of Spice Girls are too. The rest - Emma, Victoria and Geri - head off to a crazy
local nitespot 'Doris Disco'. There they will watch lots of Finns and Lapps indulge in methodical
and laborious courtship rituals to the simpering sound of Finnish pop music. There they will not partake of the
club's adjoining 24-hour sauna facilities. By 2am it will be time for beddy-byes.
"My spicy tip is keep fit and you'll feel great. My spicy tune is 'Bank Holiday' by Blur.
And my spicy man - it's gotta be Jamie Redknapp, really." MEL C
By 8.45am it is time for Ready Brek. The Spice Girls are at a reindeer farm seven minutes from the
Arctic Circle. Mel B discovers that, instead of hoofing down the steps to get to the reindeer-drawn
sleighs, one can slide down a steep snowy slope on a yelloe plastic bib thing, and that one can do
this time after time and not get bored. This is also like Gladiators, as held in Toys R Us's tundra
branch.
Then comes the sleigh-ride, the reindeer poo incident, and a quick spin on some snowbikes.
Normally Johnny and Joanne Tourist get 15-minute run-arounds, but the Spice Girls - being vacationing
pop star-types and friends of children everywhere - get 20 minutes. "Now there are five hand signals," explains
the instructor, "one for slowing down, one for stopping, one for..."
Vroom, and they're off, spinning up snow and mud and disappearing into the glacial wilderness
at a heady 20 miles per hour, shouting "road-rage, road-rage..."
Lunchtime. More pictures, more chat, more being nice. More reindeer meat. Veggie burgers.
Mashed potato, berries and bread. Vic forgot her thermal socks. Her toes are freezing. The short-term
fatigue of constant gladhandling and performing - and the cumulative fatigue of a ballistic year -
is setting in for the Spice Girls.
But not for Mel B. "I want to go on an adventure!" she yells, stomping off into the woods. She
is dragged back to tidy up some loose ends of flesh-pressing and pose-striking. Then she gets back on her
slide and makes everyone join her. Cue massive botton-congas down the hill. Like a cross between a
Butlin's Redcoat and a benign colonel, Mel B has rallied her troops yet again. Forty-five minutes later they're still at it.
"My spicy tip is if you smile sweetly like this [she smiles sweetly], you'll get away with murder.
And my spicy tune is Mantronix's 'Gotta Find a Way to Get Into Your Heart'. And my spicy man is George Clooney. Cor!"
EMMA
Everyone's tired now. Snowsuits checked in, reindeer meat chucked up, kids and Girls clamber
aboard the plane back to Sweden and Britain. Everyone dozes in a daze all the way back, snow-lagged
and totally spiced.
At Gatwick the Girls make one last speech. "It was fucking good to see you all," says Geri.
"It wouldn't have been half as much fun without you. Girl power!"
Then they're off, nephews and nieces in tow, uncles and aunties there to meet them. A series of
dark saloon cars scoop up the Girls. They kiss and hug and shout and say cheerio and yell "see
you next week". Today Winter Wonderland, next week top of the charts, next month America. The life of Spice goes on and on...
"My ambition is to be able to hang loadsa weights off my tongue-piercing 'cos that's
quite an art, innit? But I reckon I'd be a bit too scared. So I'll just continue to go bleurrugh all the
time." MEL B
And Mel B wriggles her wriggly-jiggly tongue in a thoroughly fetching manner.
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