Former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell is dressed down and made-under, and
she regrets pinching the prince's bum. Tony Ramando offers his instead.

In her accountants office in East London, Geri Halliwell and I are facing each other across a long
conference table. We're sprawled and spread out like eagles. Teacups filled with milk and
cigarette butts are shoved aside to give us plenty of room to maneuvor properly. "All right -
now I'm ready. Should I go this way or that?" Geri asks with her croaky voice. Well, I think you
should do it like this, I reply. "Okay then, your turn" she says, leaning flat onto the table to the point
of showing the tattoo that stretches from the small of her back down, uh, a little farther.

f someone were to walk in now, they'd be shocked, I say. "Stop talking: this is just starting to heat up,
and your distracting me," the admitted schizophrenic says. You know you could've jumped me
earlier if you wanted to, I tell her. "Oh, come on, be quick, will you?" she urges. At this moment,
Geri's yoga instructor, Kieth, arrives early for their 5:30 lesson. Geri glances up, trying to
salvage on elast shred of dignity. "I've lost, haven't I?" she asks. Ah, the game checkers isn't as
simple as it appears, is it?

Not as simple as, say breathing, or being a Spice Girl. Looking back, that's one of the main
reasons she ditched the cartoonish super-group she once called her family. "Being with the
Spice Girls looks like a short time on paper, but mentally those five years feel like 20 years"
she says. For Geri Halliwell, life as 'Ginger' wasn't exactly challenging (what, exactly, was she
expecting?), and there were more pressing issues the she wanted to take a stab at - like
breast cancer awareness, "which the scheadule wouldn't permit" a solo record and building a
foundation of integrity. "It doesn't take a brain scientist to figure out things weren't exactly
perfect," she says. Maybe it does, but she refuses to elaborate.

Geri Halliwell's strawberry blonde hair is pulled back, and she's not wearing any makeup. Is
this proper lady the same overly made-up cleavage monster, who, at a business function
where she couldn't find a bathroom, used some wadded - up towels as a toilet instead? "I'll
always be kicking myself for doing things like that and for pinching Prince Charles' bum - I
wouldn't do that today," she says. "The louder you are, the more insecure you are, and that was
me. I'm a lot more vulnarable now." The trashy ones always seem to clean up their acts before I
get to them.

At 5 feet 1 inch, she's a tiny and unbelievably skinny little women, modestly covered by a black
sweater and black pants. And no, shes not wearing platform sneakers. Her head isn't
disproportionatly larger than the rest of her body, as it appears to be in pictures; but her
chest, even without a bustier, is alarmingly large, compared with her overall size. But no
cleavage - I feel cheated. "I have to question my values and integrity now," she says. "Im trying
to grow, desperately. When I left the Spice Girls, I really had to look at myself on all levels -
physically and superficially - and wipe off my make-up and undress myself," Geri says. "Im
really not sure who I was then."

Now Geri is rifling through her purse for her drivers license to prove to me how ridiculous it is
that so many people think shes 35. A year ago, she was called many things - Podge Spice,
Chin-ger Spice and Old Spice (oops, we called her that in our premier issue). "I don't have my
drivers license after all - I gave it to my driver," she explains (although she doesn't explain why
her driver would need her license). "When I joined the Spice Girls, I said I was 21, when I was
actually 22. And now I look back and say, 'I know I looked old.' Im just a reflection of the way
society makes us think its crap to get old. The other thing with the Spice Girls, as time went on,
was that I felt unhappy inside and not confident about my looks, so I put more and more
make-up on to hide it."

Your without cake face right now, so do you feel less than perfect? "Yes, But the difference is... you hide
behind the mask until you've had enough. I think image is fine, but image is also bullshit, and
we have to acknowledge that. And I have," she says. She doesn't look 26, but she also doesn't
look older than 30 - and even if she isn't 26, who cares? Most people have issues about their
ages. "Who gives a crap?" she laughs. Maybe I'm 66, and I've just got good wrinkle cream."

So why did Geri quit the Spice Girls? "I suppose it was quite a mad thing to do - why would
anyone?" she asks. "I had to go onstage and do the Spice Girls thing, even though I was
changing." But she is willing to give me a little Spice Girls gossip: The reason Geri didn't
attend Scary's wedding is because she wasn't invited. She is not a scientologist. On the
pregnancy rumour: "I'd love to have a child one day, but right now all I've got is Harry," she says
of her purse-size dog. On the rumour on that she got a raw deal: "I kind of had to lick my
wounds and rebuild myself, rebuild my confidence as a human being, not rely on my identity
as a Spice Girl," she says.

And the feud between her a Scary Spice? Geri won't elaborate in words. But when I give her a
T-shirt to autograph (for our managing editors daughter - not me!), I have to stop her from
drawing a mustache on Scary.

Somehow, it becomes her turn to ask the questions. "Do you know what the meaning of life is?"
Geri asks. Beer and Women? "Thats fine," she says, winking, "but you know when you're asking
yourself the important questions in life? Thats me right now." Geri Halliwell has put a cork in
the "girl power" for the time being. She says "It's more about people power." This, no doubt, is
linked to her appointment as an ambassador for the United Nations; her responsibilities
include supporting contraceptives awareness and a population control program. "I'll tell you
who I admire," she says, "Hillary Clinton. I think she's brilliant. I think she should run for
president." As of late, Geri's been spending most of her time in a recording studio, rather than
running her trap about condoms and sex. She's just finished recording her as-yet-untitled
solo record (due in late spring), which she describes as a "roller coaster ride with hormonal
mood swings - more adult."

As we near the end of our game, I have all of Geri's checker pieces except two. She moves a
black checker and then takes her finger off of it (she wanted to be red because red is a
power colour, but in the end chose black because "black is slimming"). She spots a safer
play and quickly tries to move her piece back. You took your finger off that, Missy. "I did not!
...Okay, I did," she says. I think you're pretty much finished. "It ain't over till the fat lady sings, and I
hate losing," she responds. "I love the underdog. You know, checkers is a metaphor for life,
isn't it? Don't move because it's take or be taken. I've taken the piss out of myself now, and I
think thats very important," she says.