Brighton Ink (after Red, 2007)

It's been a busy few days what with one thing and another. For us, work is a funny old thing. Working for ourselves (albeit for other people) from home means that we never know when we are going to be busy, and it can go from feeling like you are never going to work again to feeling like you are never going to stop working within a matter of hours. And my blogging suffers when I get too busy.

Notwithstanding, even though there was enough work to keep me home all weekend, once I heard of Old School Saturday at Magnum Opus Tattoo in Brighton, where they were offering "Old School tattoos at Old School prices" (that is, from £20, or US$40, + a £10 tip), I had to head down and see what could be done.

I was fairly sure there would be much demand, since Magnum Opus is Phil Kyle's new studio, and Phil Kyle was one of the artists featured on the TV show London Ink, so that made me feel like there was no point rushing to get there, cos there's sure to be a huge queue and I'll end up just wandering the streets of Brighton instead. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Finding Brighton was easy and took just an hour and 20 or so. Finding the shop was harder, since I'd neglected to print a map. It took at least another 45 minutes of driving around, but find it we did. By now the shop had been open almost an hour; any chance of getting inked was surely out the window.

As we approached the door, there was no visible queue. "Ah," I thought, "it's probably so busy that people have put their names on a list and headed off for a coffee while they wait." But no... amazingly enough there was only one person ahead of us. I was dumbstruck.

"Hi there. I've come to get an Old School tattoo at Old School prices," I announced to the guys behind the counter, and they whipped out a tiny sheet of flash from which to make my choice. True enough, these were some good Old School designs. As I mulled over what to have, the missus started suddenly to show some interest. You can read what happened to her here.

I was torn between three designs in particular, two of which were bladed weapons, and the other was a snake wrapped around a skull. Below is what I finally plumped for, and the ink was put in by Lynn Akura. I've also got some video footage of the both us getting tattooed, since the team there was very accommodating at my request.

I have never given so little thought to getting a tattoo before, and it was both liberating and exciting to be having a tattoo just for the fun of having one, rather than going through the rigmarole I usually do, thinking what to have, where to have, when to have, trying to get an appointment, etc, etc, etc. A fun day out for all the family!