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London Ink

Tattoo needle on an arm
  • Posted at 11:41am
  • 25 September 2007
  • by RhodriMarsden-RT
  • 5 comments

I'd defend the right of anyone to spend hours under a tattooist's needle to have the small of their back covered with mistranslated Japanese symbols that actually mean "municipal housing authority". But the permanence of these things is frightening. Even if you rub really hard with a flannel and some Dove Triple Moisturising Beauty Care Body Wash, they're going absolutely nowhere.

I don't have a tattoo. In rare moments of temptation I've always tried to think ahead and ponder the consequences. Even as an exuberant teenager, I knew that my obsession with The Cure was probably a fleeting thing, that Robert Smith wouldn't always be my hero, and I shouldn't have his name on my forearm in gothic script for all eternity.

But not everyone is as boring and sensible as I am. If you're currently at work, I'd restrain yourself from doing a Google image search for "worst tattoo ever" because of the eye-popping obscenity of many examples, but here are some "safe for work" pictures of people who took the plunge against their better judgement: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and, most notably, Exhibit X. Yes, I know.

Anyway, our fascination with tattoos, and the lengths to which people will go to indelibly desecrate themselves with a picture of a sexy vampire, has made Miami Ink – a series looking at life in a Florida tattoo studio – something of a success. The fact that it's now in its third series might also be down to the fact that Miami's South Beach is full of gorgeous, tanned men and women with bulging biceps and bouncing breasts that TV cameras adore to home in on.

But now we have a spin-off called London Ink. The story is that David Beckham's tattoo artist, Louis Molloy, has moved down from Manchester and opened a tattoo studio off Goswell Road in Islington. He tries to give the show some edgy realism by stating how difficult it will be to get the business off the ground, and how it's already an "uphill struggle".

He is, however, employing four of the best tattoo artists in the country, they already have a client list including glamour models and international sports stars, and the whole shebang is being promoted in a five-part series on the Discovery Channel. I can't see them going cap in hand to the Prince's Trust just yet.

The show does suffer in comparison to its American cousin, however, because gorgeous tanned models don't whizz down Goswell Road on rollerblades. Having once lived nearby, I know that passing trade is more likely to consist of pissed aeronautical engineering students from City University repeatedly shouting the word "spoon" for no apparent reason.

So instead of bronzed, Amazonian specimens, we get a nu-metal fan who wants his old car tattooed on his arm, a budding indie singer-songwriter who wants his shoulder blades to look a bit like David Beckham's, and a hippy chick who wants the tops of her feet decorated with symbols that represent freedom, or responsibility, or something, I dunno.

But they all left the studio perfectly happy. And despite the fact that I enjoyed watching the precision craftsmanship of the tattooists, I realised that what I was desperate to see was a customer who really, really hated their new, permanent decoration. I mean, it must happen. Surely it must.

London Ink continues on Sunday nights on Discovery Real Time (Sky 250, Virgin 271, Freeview 42).

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Comments

  • Posted on 04 October 2007
  • at 4:47pm
  • by MazY

My tattoo, depicting a pair of spectacles and a remote control, with the words "Rhodri Marsden Rox" is going nowhere I tell you.

  • Posted on 30 September 2007
  • at 11:34am
  • by themanwhofellasleep

I used to work just off Goswell Road and can testify that there were very few bronzed Amazonian godesses. There were a lot of instructional designers, but they aren't really as glamorous.

  • Posted on 27 September 2007
  • at 12:03pm
  • by Vicwardian

As someone who has two tattoos, one bad, one good, both regretted now, I laughed out loud at this.

Brilliant.

  • Posted on 26 September 2007
  • at 4:33pm
  • by acidwit
Oh! Deeply funny. Thank you, Rhodri. Like you, I've never managed to go through with getting tattooed, despite having brilliant inspirations in my earlier years. And having worked in a retirement home, I have seen many elderly tattoos, all of them a murky greenish blue, no matter how splendid they were at the start. Jane
  • Posted on 26 September 2007
  • at 1:25pm
  • by atoms

You Hideous Hero. B-)

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