This morning, the world woke up to the news of a Spice Girls reunion. Cue internet hysteria. Within a few hours, dreams were dashed as Emma Bunton announced that, no, nothing is official. Yet.
Personally, I hope it isn't happening. I saw the Spice Girls in concert in their heyday for the sell-out 1997 Spiceworld Tour. I was 14, Girl Power was at its peak and the oh-so-cool Scary, Sporty, Posh, Baby and Ginger were loved and adored by a generation of teenage girls just like me.
Fast forward a decade or so to the Return of the Spice Girls 2008 tour. In a fit of nostalgia, my sister and I booked tickets hoping to relive those teenage glory days for one night only. Sadly, it was not to be. Things had changed. The high-kicking, zig-a-zig-ahing had somehow lost its sparkle with the passage of time. The Spice Girls and their audience had grown up and the embarrassed (no, mortified) look on Victoria Beckham's face said it all. We'd all moved on and whatever alchemy had created that original magic – wide-eyed youth, sass and the unapologetic wearing of leopard print, pink, tracksuits and 10-inch platforms – was gone.
Which is why I'm worried about another reunion. Yet another decade has lapsed and with ever year, public marriage break-up, reality TV series and personal re-branding, the Spice Girls themselves move further and further away from their original, simple brilliance.
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. It allows us to remember things through rose-tinted glasses. Even if we misremember or idealise those youthful experiences, it doesn't matter because they're just memories now.
So here's to hoping that there is no reunion. And thirty-something women around the world will get to hang on to their romanticised memories of what remains the greatest girl band that ever was.
No one puts it better than the girls themselves in their final song, Goodbye:
So glad we made it, time will never change it no no no
No no no no
You know its time to say goodbye…
