Frank Skinner talks about Melanie...

"I confess that, in my ignorance, I once called her Ugly Spice. It was
shallow of me. I thought she had been placed among the other Spices in
order to emphasise their beauty by contrast. A carefully planted thorn
among the roses.

What a fool I was. Sporty did not have the obvious attractiveness of the
other four, but then again, obviousness is a spluttering, short-lived
firework of a thing. Sporty's attraction is an enigmatic, seductive,
slow-burner. I once bought my manager a very expensive crate of vintage
wine and was somewhat distressed to see it arrive in a rather grubby-looking
wooden box with various scribblings all over it. Later he told me it was the
finest wine he had ever tasted. Sporty, typically in trackies and a
Liverpool shirt, is akin to that wine, just as the other four are akin to
alcopops.

She is the great album that leaves you stone-cold on first hearing and then
steadily insinuates its way into your psyche. Her slightly androgynous,
drink-and-talk-football-with-the-lads-but-then-melt-in-your-arms-in-the-moon
light beauty is at the very core of Girl Power. I fear that the other four
still, despite all the growling, go to the toilet in pairs and prefer a
lady's glass.

Sporty's the girl who doesn't mind sharing a tomato ketchup sandwich at
three in the morning when you're staying up late to watch the boxing."