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Carpe Diem
Monday, June 8th, 2015 02:29 pmSo where was I?
Oh yes. Tattoo. I got a tattoo – it’s about a month ago now as the time flies, but there it is. Finally.
There isn’t much to say about the getting of a tattoo per se, since it’s all rather commonplace these days. It’s hardly remarkable. What is remarkable is the fact that it took me about 40 years since thinking it might be cool, to actually getting inked (see how quickly I pick up and use the lingo). One of my friends, on finding out that I’d finally dived in and done it, suggested that I should have gone for Carpe Diem. Cheeky Sod.
As anyone who has known me for any length of time probably knows, in addition to being an unregenerate lover of Progressive Rock, I am a life-long Beatles fan and this love of The Fabs extends to (most of) their solo offerings. So it was, sometime in 1975, I picked up the then latest elpee by George Harrison, namely “Extra Texture”.
Now it’s not obvious from the sleeve on this picture that the cover is embossed and on it there is an ‘Om’ (George being into Eastern Mysticism and all that), and when I looked at other Harrison offerings, before (and since), the Om appeared everywhere. In those pre internet days, I didn’t know precisely what it was, but I guessed it was Hindu, or Buddhist, or similar (it’s both as it turns out, plus Sikh and Jainist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om ). Anyway, given his spiritual proclivities, I was pretty certain that it wasn’t anything horrid – though there remained the vague possibility that it meant ‘I like fish’n’chips’ in Guajarati, or something. Given The Beatles’ individual senses of humour, you couldn’t write this things off. Anyway, I thought it would make a cool tattoo.
But I was 16 and I was broke. So a combination of being too young and penniless to boot meant that the whole concept foundered right from the off.
Over the years the idea resurfaced a number of times and I came close to getting it done, but on those relatively rare times when I had both the cash and the inclination, I couldn’t find a tattoo parlour (correct name? Yes? No?) that looked a) clean, and/or b) not infested by one-eyed morlocks. Then I read an interesting and alarming article on blood poisoning and that put me right off. Again. Add to this a general fear of needles – I will pretty much do anything to avoid being prodded by a nurse or a doctor and they at least can be confirmed to use sterile equipment – and you begin to see that vague musings apart, Our Hero is not a natural in the world of tattoo art.
About three years ago, Furtle had an ‘accidental holiday’ (don’t ask. It’s a Furtle thing) in Canterbury for a few days and while she was there, elected to get her ears repierced. She found a place that met her exacting standards of hygiene and voila!
Anyway, she enjoyed Canterbury so much that we went down for a long weekend (the first of many) and I saw the place she’d been to and noted that in addition to piercings, they also do tattoos. All very clean and modern. The thought that I should have my tattoo done recurred and I spent about half a day wandering around trying to talk myself out of my old misgivings. That was two years ago. Needless to say I talked myself out of it. “What if my arm drops off? What if I get blood poisoning” and so on and so forth.
The beginning of May this year, we fled the building work at The Gin Palace for a couple of nights in Canterbury.
And for some reason, I thought, “Sod it. If not now, when?” and rather to both Furtle’s and my surprise, I went and got it done. If my 25 year old nephew can cover himself in dozens of the buggers, my 28 year old niece can have a dozen and even my sister get two or three, Yours Truly can manage, at the golden age of 56 to get an Om daubed on his arm.
Anyway. Here it is a day or so after completion. It looks darker than that now as the layer of dead skin has been replaced with new skin, but I can’t roll my shirt sleeve up enough to get a newer picture and I’m not taking my shirt off in the office.
No one deserves that.
Oh yes. Tattoo. I got a tattoo – it’s about a month ago now as the time flies, but there it is. Finally.
There isn’t much to say about the getting of a tattoo per se, since it’s all rather commonplace these days. It’s hardly remarkable. What is remarkable is the fact that it took me about 40 years since thinking it might be cool, to actually getting inked (see how quickly I pick up and use the lingo). One of my friends, on finding out that I’d finally dived in and done it, suggested that I should have gone for Carpe Diem. Cheeky Sod.
As anyone who has known me for any length of time probably knows, in addition to being an unregenerate lover of Progressive Rock, I am a life-long Beatles fan and this love of The Fabs extends to (most of) their solo offerings. So it was, sometime in 1975, I picked up the then latest elpee by George Harrison, namely “Extra Texture”.
Now it’s not obvious from the sleeve on this picture that the cover is embossed and on it there is an ‘Om’ (George being into Eastern Mysticism and all that), and when I looked at other Harrison offerings, before (and since), the Om appeared everywhere. In those pre internet days, I didn’t know precisely what it was, but I guessed it was Hindu, or Buddhist, or similar (it’s both as it turns out, plus Sikh and Jainist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om ). Anyway, given his spiritual proclivities, I was pretty certain that it wasn’t anything horrid – though there remained the vague possibility that it meant ‘I like fish’n’chips’ in Guajarati, or something. Given The Beatles’ individual senses of humour, you couldn’t write this things off. Anyway, I thought it would make a cool tattoo.
But I was 16 and I was broke. So a combination of being too young and penniless to boot meant that the whole concept foundered right from the off.
Over the years the idea resurfaced a number of times and I came close to getting it done, but on those relatively rare times when I had both the cash and the inclination, I couldn’t find a tattoo parlour (correct name? Yes? No?) that looked a) clean, and/or b) not infested by one-eyed morlocks. Then I read an interesting and alarming article on blood poisoning and that put me right off. Again. Add to this a general fear of needles – I will pretty much do anything to avoid being prodded by a nurse or a doctor and they at least can be confirmed to use sterile equipment – and you begin to see that vague musings apart, Our Hero is not a natural in the world of tattoo art.
About three years ago, Furtle had an ‘accidental holiday’ (don’t ask. It’s a Furtle thing) in Canterbury for a few days and while she was there, elected to get her ears repierced. She found a place that met her exacting standards of hygiene and voila!
Anyway, she enjoyed Canterbury so much that we went down for a long weekend (the first of many) and I saw the place she’d been to and noted that in addition to piercings, they also do tattoos. All very clean and modern. The thought that I should have my tattoo done recurred and I spent about half a day wandering around trying to talk myself out of my old misgivings. That was two years ago. Needless to say I talked myself out of it. “What if my arm drops off? What if I get blood poisoning” and so on and so forth.
The beginning of May this year, we fled the building work at The Gin Palace for a couple of nights in Canterbury.
And for some reason, I thought, “Sod it. If not now, when?” and rather to both Furtle’s and my surprise, I went and got it done. If my 25 year old nephew can cover himself in dozens of the buggers, my 28 year old niece can have a dozen and even my sister get two or three, Yours Truly can manage, at the golden age of 56 to get an Om daubed on his arm.
Anyway. Here it is a day or so after completion. It looks darker than that now as the layer of dead skin has been replaced with new skin, but I can’t roll my shirt sleeve up enough to get a newer picture and I’m not taking my shirt off in the office.
No one deserves that.