Salford City Council's Poster Boy

In 2010 I was working for a local council. When the opportunity came to partake in a photo shoot there was no turning it down. My ripped physique and chiselled jaw line were designed for releasing to a wider audience so a photo shoot was the perfect vehicle to showcase my obvious talents.

The marketing department were requesting volunteers for the photo shoot to highlight environment issues i.e energy saving etc.  I put my name forward and once I had seen the application it was apparent I would pass all the criteria.  The questions included  "Are you fit?"  My answer - "Yes, extremely".  "Do you consider yourself photogenic?" My answer -  " Obviously, haven't you seen my portfolio?". 

On a sunny June morning I set off for "the shoot", as we models say.  I signed a few autographs on the way in as word had got out that I was making an appearance (bloody Twitter!).  My make up was applied (by me) then I was introduced to the 7 other models for the day. They were 3 men and 4 women.  Obviously, the women got very excited when they saw me but I had to disappoint them immediately by revealing this would be a fully clothed shoot as my agent had already checked with the authority and insisted any bare flesh photography had to be pre-arranged with her as it may infringe my image rights.

All 8 of us were kitted out with props etc and over the course of the day we were asked to create various scenarios for our collective shots. However, there were some unseemly scenes at times as every shot I was in brought a scrum amongst the others to be involved with me. Once all the shots were "in the can" as we say in the profession, I said my goodbyes to the others and made my way out of the building. I quickly jumped into my Renault Clio (03 plate) and headed for home.

I was told that once the shots were edited they would be released in a poster campaign throughout the city and there would also be some cardboard cut outs to be placed around council buildings.  I knew that mine wouldn't last 5 minutes before some hysterical fan ran off with it.  Around a month later the pictures were released and my vision of gorgeousness started to appear everywhere.  They used a shot of me with a few others as "wallpaper" on the council's computer screens for a while and many times as I was passing desks around the offices during the day I would catch women of all ages gazing at the wallpaper on their screen. It's true, I really am a dreamboat. It came to a point where only pictures without me on them were used as wallpaper as not enough work was being done.

When the cardboard cut outs appeared they only produced 4 and none of them were of me.  When I queried this with marketing they gave some lame excuse about budgets or something but I knew the truth.  Any cut out of me would obviously go missing and they were too stingy to replace them.

This is the end of this tale.  Some parts of it are true and some others have been altered very slightly.  I shall leave it up to you, the reader, to decide where the alterations are.