Like a child, I am hoping that if I keep my eyes tightly shut the whole thing will disappear. Which is a possibility, I think miserably, that only works if you want a tattoo removed. Nearly half of them had been inked between the ages of 18 and 25, and nearly a third of them regretted it. The British Association of Dermatologists recently surveyed just under 600 patients with visible tattoos. Your youthful passion for ever on display, like a CD of the Smiths stapled to your forehead.
As if the Joker had made face paints from acid. “My niece had doves tattooed on her breasts,” says a friend, “And her father said, you wait, in a few years’ time they’ll be vultures.” Sam Cam with her smudgy dolphin, the heavily tattooed at Royal Ascot – these people are role models? They seem no more alternative than piercings these days. So many teenagers are doing it.” I stare at pictures of David Beckham with his flowery sleeves, Angelina Jolie all veins and scrawls. My neighbour says, “There’s a lot of it about. I keep thinking of his skin, his precious skin, inked like a pig carcass. I have a lump in my throat that stops me from eating. I know all you can do as a parent is to pack their bags and wave as you watch them go. You hope the next generation will be better, stronger, more generous. Why would you want to, anyway? If you controlled what they did, you’d just pass on your own rubbish tip of imperfections.
I know you can’t control what your children do. It would really upset me if you did this. He’s done the one thing that I’ve said for years, please don’t do this. In my mind’s eye I stand there, a bitter old woman with pursed lips wringing my black-gloved hands. In any case, I’m not even sure what it is I want to say. The last thing we need, I think, is an explosion of white-hot words that everyone carries around for the rest of their lives, engraved on their hearts. Very much.”įor three days, I can’t speak to my son. “Yes,” I say, cutting across this male bonding. It seems to me, unhinged by shock, that this might have been the better option. “It’s not as if I came home and said I’d got someone pregnant.” “It’s just a tattoo,” he says, when the silence goes on so long that we have nearly fallen over the edge of it into a pit of black nothingness. £150? I think, briefly, of all the things I could buy with £150. In the silence, he says, “I didn’t think you’d be this upset.”Īfter a while, he says, “It wasn’t just a drunken whim. “On my arm,” he says, and touches his bicep through his shirt. Maybe during his school years he thought a tattoo would balance the geeky glory of academic achievement. Any minute he’s going to laugh and say, “You should see your faces” because this has been a running joke for years, this idea of getting a tattoo – the hard man act, iron muscles, shaved head, Jason Statham, Ross Kemp. I hope you enjoy these author interviews! There’s more to come.But still I wait. In order of appearance, we have interviews with: I’ve finished five of ten interviews so far and wanted a place to share them with you – most are people you already know and love. I have been interviewing all the authors of the bundle. Along with 9 other authors, I created the (), featuring 17 stories by 10 authors for just $10! The proceeds are split between paying authors and supporting their chosen charities, the Trevor Project and the You Can Play project.