OK, it wasn't quite a formal assignment, more of a random shoot at Call Lane bar Oporto which, supposedly, involved 'normal' looking people getting snapped for an ad campaign.

I was convinced to take part because the photos were being taken by award-winner Steve Howdle and, to be fair, I wasn't quite turned away, more gradually dissuaded.

The 'normal' criteria was a dubious draw from the start.

I had that same sense of discomfort you feel when someone tries to set you up on a blind date with one of their mates who is 'striking' looking. You just know that striking = an eye missing and teeth so bucked they could eat an apple through a tennis racket.

Similarly, I had a hunch that normal didn't mean normal it really meant 'plain'.

Turns out I was wrong, however. After approaching a stylist and informing her I was here as one of the normal models, she looked at me bemused. "Normal?!" she said.

Not that she thought I was extremely abnormal in either a hunchback or hunky way (I hope not anyway), it was just that they clearly had a different brief to the one I'd been given.

Clenching

The Zoolander realisation hit me as I was confronted by some rather chiselled guys sitting around in muscle vests.

When they said "normal" they clearly meant I had to be "normally in a gym" or "normally clenching my jaw and playing with my fringe as I catch my image in any reflective surface I happen to be passing".

One of the buff models changed into a T-shirt by peeling his muscle vest off in the middle of the bar because the toilets were, ooh, a good 10 feet away and he was tired from frowning.

Ironically the T-shirt he'd worn for the shoot was then offered to me to wear, among several others lining a rack which was dutifully displayed by another stylist. They were all rather low cut, tight fitting tops which looked great on Marcus or Jake or Brutus or whoever the other guy was, but never on me.

"What will you go for?" she asked.

"A cry?!" I thought.

I reluctantly gestured towards a black number. Unlike Marcus, I made it to the toilet and managed to slide the T-shirt over my slow-puncture physique. It clung there grotesquely.

I re-emerged to be confronted by the nice lady who'd invited me in the first place "So are you going to do it?" she enquired. "Well, you see, the thing is all these people are really svelte and about 22 and I'm rather fat and 33." I replied

"Oh don't be daft" she said, lifting up a selection of the photos they'd already taken. "He's not svelte and 22." She'd gestured towards the solitary, anomalous, non-modelesque person.

He was about 40, had a long Hell's Angel-type beard and, despite having a rather large pot belly, still looked better in a T-shirt than I did. No way was I going to be second worst to someone from ZZ Top.

"Honestly, we've just been randomly grabbing normal people off the street." she continued.

Which was plausible as this was Call Lane, aka Beautiful Street, and even if a blind cowboy lassoed pedestrians from the doorway of Oporto he was never going to pull in Johnny Vegas.

So I made my excuses and left, sensing I'd got my just deserts.

I'd come hoping for a free photo, paid with my pride and still departed with nothing.

Terrible thing, vanity.


Income taxi


ALONG with food and fuel has come one of the most worrying hikes in prices – cab fares.

For the first time in a while I caught a taxi, or a private hire vehicle as the council insists we refer to them, and found my normal charge of £10 to take me from the city centre to my home had gone up to almost £12.

On inquiry, the driver told me they'd been forced to push up meter rates by around 10 per cent, which still didn't account for the extra £2. But then that's taxi driver maths for you.

Question is, was his claim true? Or was I just duped as usual?


Is city living dream taking in water?


SAD news this week as the Leeds water bus – a barge to ferry city living commuters from one end of the River Aire to the city centre – was scrapped.

OK, it might seem like small fry compared to the shelving of Lumiere, but in its own small way it might be further proof that the much-mooted boom in city living has yet to gain the hoped-for foothold.

Are those apartments by the riverside really packed with businessmen, media types and financial whizzkids or are they either unoccupied or filled with students and call centre wannabes?

The truth, I suspect, is somewhere between the two extremes. Either way there wasn't enough demand for this service to stay above water and I suspect we're going to see numerous other schemes sink unless something radically changes over the next five years.