Videopolis

Remember the days when Victoria Beckham was hideously unimportant? Back in the days when she was plain old Vicky Adams, she used to be in some crazy little British band… Videopolis takes a look at five videos in the career of the Spice Girls:

1. In fact, some old lady extra is in the video for Wannabe more than Beckham. Prophetic some might say, given how Posh now seems to dress like her.
2. Posh Spice. Dawn French. Who can tell the difference in the Who Do You Think You Are video?
3. I vividly recall hating the video for Spice Up Your Life at the time – such a happy song, such a dark video. Now, of course, I see that Spiceworld is as much a searing critique of the values of a dystopian society as 1984 or Brave New World… maybe…
4. Viva Forever sees the evil child-catcher Spice fairies entrap a gender-indeterminate child in a Rubik’s cube before his mate chucks it into a gachapon vending machine (the toys in the little egg-shaped canisters). What this is meant to be a metaphor for, we’ll never know but someone’s probably writing a thesis on it as we speak.
5. Well, the Spice Girls tour date in Hong Kong never materialized… instead, we got the video for Headlines, the sole purpose of which seemed to be to demonstrate how you can see Geri Halliwell’s ribs when she’s in her underwear.

Watch all the videos here: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?
p=83072546D9608616

Classic or Tragic?
Is there an unwritten rule somewhere that ‘classic’ novels are sacrosanct? If so, I’m about to break it. Here’s my confession, bc readers – I despise Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Despite being hailed as some sort of feminist icon by several critics (seemingly only because she is not the prettiest girl at the literary heroine party and because she refuses Rochester’s first proposal – wow, big deal, Lizzie Bennett did the same when Darcy first proposed in Pride and Prejudice), Eyre is profoundly pathetic, mooning about Rochester yet unwilling to do anything about it. Oh yes, apart from almost deciding to become a missionary with one of the most extraneous characters in English literature, St John Rivers, before, in a moment even a TVB soap opera would shirk at, some voice from beyond implores her to return to darling Rochester. The final mush of an ending, where Rochester magically regains his sight, reads like something out of a Mills & Boon, only with longer words.

That’s not to say the book isn’t without potential – Rochester makes for a hero so surly he’d no doubt be throwing a strop over his new-found sex symbol status from television adaptations. Instead of Charlotte Brontë, go read Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair for a hint of the Jane Eyre that never was but should have been.

Guilty Pleasures
Half the joy in returning to the television of your youth is seeing what the actors you had teen crushes on are up to now – and those from ’90s classic Saved By The Bell don’t disappoint. While Mario Lopez (AC Slater), fresh from showing off his snake-hips on Dancing With The Stars, looks identical (dimples intact and, luckily for the ladies, still with an aversion to wearing shirts), Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach Morris) probably won’t be setting teen hearts a-flutter now with his dull, greasy locks. Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (Kelly Kapowski) went blonde, Elizabeth Berkley (Jessie Spano) lost her curls and her dignity in Showgirls and your guess is as good as mine as to what happened to Lark Voorhies (Lisa Turtle). Best (or worst) of all is Dustin Diamond’s fall from grace – returning to play Screech in another decade’s worth of Saved By The Bell spin-offs, a how-to-play chess video where he dressed up as (you’ve guessed it) Screech and (hold onto your lunches) a sex tape. Paris Hilton he ain’t. Balk.

Relive the memories of that incredible theme tune at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K4iTh1TL9g