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Your support makes all the difference.Main Claims: Boddingtons beer bird and now plucked from the commercial break and made Big Breakfast sofa starlet.
Catchphrases: "Eh, up, Tarquil! Are your trollies on the wrong way round?" Latterly, "But don't phone, it's just for fun".
Appearance: Tracey Barlow reincarnated as an Indo-Italian lesbian vampire; late Seventies Starbird with attitude; the vixenish lust-child of Frank Randall and Ornella Muti. She has the breasts of Sharon Stone, the vowels of Dora Bryan, the appetite of the hungry caterpillar and exactly the same christian name as 40 per cent of the Spice Girls. Venus risen from the Manchester ship canal, or spawned in the sweaty collective id of Loaded readers - she smokes fags, drinks bitter from cans and her favourite food is Super Noodles ("they're fantastic!" she says.) For Pub Man, she's a godsend - because she's a babe who's beery and got a mouth on her, they can treat her like one of the lads and a sex object simultaneously. Think of Pocahontas in a see-through shortie nightie frying bangers and singing The Biggest Aspidistra in the World.
Larded: Despite the modelling, there's no Kate Moss diet of reduced-calorie Alp water and edelweiss petals for Melanie, 26. She has a positive aversion to fruit: a guava has never passed her lips and broccoli will only tempt her if drowned in a sea of cheese sauce. Instead, she plumps for chicken liver, bacon sarnies, sausage and mash and steak and kidney pie, although she can only eat anchovies with her eyes shut. So how does she gorge herself like Michael Winner and yet retain the figure of one of his beautiful young wives? Don't phone, it's just for fun.
Drop the Boy, Drop the Boy: Melanie dated bankrupt Eighties test-tube pop tart and ankle-fetishist Matt Goss for four years (about four times the length of his period of celebrity). Her career took off shortly after leaving him. "I'm heartbroken," Goss wailed. The current boyfriend is Jago Anderson, 27, a former PR boy who now touts dinky little Chinese scooters to Bjork and the Gallagher-Kensits.
Future Prospects: Safe until Posh Spice's fee sinks low enough for Daytime to afford. Even then she'll have a few options to stop her beer-inspired career from going flat. She could have an affair with Liam, engineering a Dynasty-style cat-fight with Patsy (perhaps slinging her through a rack of dresses on her ITV Afternoon Live slot, "I Haven't Got a Thing to Wear"). She could read the news on Channel 5, or pull pints at the Rover's Return - where she'd be sure to appreciate Betty's hot pot.
Do Say: More chips with your mayonnaise, our Mel?
Don't Say: Would you like that in a ladies' glass, Miss Sykes?
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