RoryQ

@Juan Pardo Cool. Your post made me google Samuele Briganti ship tattoos ... Really nice stuff also, he does appear to tattoo a lot of ships!

@Mike Panic Buying a custom low-profile clip is an option, although maybe you've considered that... STRsBack Yard Knife Works: Low Rider Pocket Clips For Folding Knives

@jade1955 A bit of a mixture- some walnut, some maple and the knife on top is a native Cambodian wood whose name escapes me. Citadel are quite reputable, although they're better known for making swords than knives.

I've seen the guys from East Tattoo cover stuff like that with big dark-scaled koi. They did a guest spot in Paris this year, and will probably be back there at some point. I'd think someone like Tin Tin would have, in his time, covered up more awkward pieces than that.

If you start inserting needles into your sleeves before you meet your friends they'll probably eventually learn not to fiddle with your arm. There could be other consequences though. (Yes, that's right, you get less tactile new friends)

When I saw Freddy Corbin in the line-up it did perk up my interest. In general though, I suspect the likes of us are not the target market for this venture...? A celebrity tattoo studio opening in Notting Hill sounds like a potential plot for a new Hugh Grant rom-com vehicle. I can see it now: "Floppy-haired repressed English gentleman (Hugh Grant) falls in love with unsuitable, free-spirited American tattooer (Reese Witherspoon or someone) who teaches him about being himself and ... blah blah etc etc.". Ker-ching....

@abees Thought Curly was really good, I don't think the presenter expected him to be as frank as he was about the problems (for most people) around getting tattooed below the shirt-line, doing hands, face, neck etc. If you're policing then the reality is that, as Stewart alludes to, you do not get visible tattoos or display any kind of heavy coverage unless you want to find your chances of promotion and movement within the job coming to a grinding halt. In fairness, it's not just marking yourself out by displaying the fact that you're tattooed heavily that will do that: There's ample ways to rule yourself out of contention (Go sick too often or for too long... Go sick with the wrong thing, such as a mental health issue... Have or make a bullying complaint... Be see to accrue too many complaints against you..etc). That said, while policing as a concept is conservative in terms of its social function (and in the way it is managed) there are a lot of people in the ranks who are there because it is an unconventional job in many ways. The irregular hours are the antithesis of 9-to-5, and the work itself can be either mind-numbingly boring or interesting and dangerous one night to the next. You find jobsworths who are there for the pension, but you'll also find people who are risk-takers and eccentrics by any measuring stick. When I joined up there as a small number of guys floating around in the job who had forearm tattoos, usually quite old-school, daggers and crawling panthers. These were guys who had transferred in from the Irish army or prison service. The attitude was that they got a free pass from management as far as the tattoos went. I don't think it would fly today, they'd be in long-sleeves like the rest of us.

@ian Awesome. Just saw on Frith Sts twitter that Chad Koeplinger is there from Feb 18 to March 15th... Great chance for some of you... Must... Resist...

Yeah, it's the 'tattoo with tattoos in it' aspect and the sheer insanity of the girl-riding-killer-whale concept. Xam is doing a guest spot at Ross Nagle's shop in Ireland in November, and taking bookings... That would be a hell of a way to totally jump his waiting-list (...except I'm out of the country getting tattooed... If I could split myself in two I wouldn't face these first-world problems).

I think the answer to your question is in how you're defining a backpiece. Yes, if it's a traditional style japanese piece that goes from neck to knees then it might easily take up to 100 hours. However, what if it's american traditional or a smaller japanese-style piece that only goes to the waist? That'll take a significant amount of time off. If it's black and grey, or has a significant amount of negative space, then even more. I think my backpiece would fit into this category - it took around 25 hours (OK, maybe 25-30...) :- This backpiece, by Xam (The Family Business Tattoo, London) was done in 16 hours:- Now that does blow my mind. Similarly, I've seen other backpieces on that scale banged out in short spaces of time, attributed to people like Filip Leu.

I know, rookie error, instantly regretted it.

I regret telling my fiancee that I was worried that my friends, who are organising my stag party next year, are pretty irresponsible and that I was worried it could end in chaos (someone being murdered, nightclub burning down etc). ...Should have just kept that one to myself.

I've seen quite a few sugar skull stormtroopers floating around... Star Wars is ripe subject matter.

Just got off the phone with The Family Business in London. I've booked in for three sessions with Mo Coppoletta in March, April and Mayr next yea to bring my left arm down into a full sleeve. He did my chest plates and the existing (half) sleeve on that arm, so after thinking about it I decided I would keep the continuity and have him continue it down. Actually when I look at the tattooing I got from him (some of it about 8 years old at this stage) it is actually some of the most vivid tattooing I have, even now - he really knows how to put on a tattoo.

Liverpool-themed tattoo by Ross Nagle, might be the sort of thing the OP was talking about being possible (i.e a trad take on it). I like some of the boxing tattoos floating around from the likes of Xam etc. This is one is a BKB (bare knuckle boxing) one by Chris Smith, Chicago. Guess it's about the symbolism or idea of what the sport represents more than the sport itself, but it still qualifies, right?

Met commissioner bans 'unprofessional' visible tattoos - Telegraph The Met has, in recent years, been pretty strict on tattoos they deem to be racist or potentially inflammatory (I think that may even include things like a st. george's cross or union jack). I gather potential recruits had to send in photographs at one stage for evaluation. Now the commissioner seems to have banned outright tattoos on hands, face and neck as 'unprofessional'. Members of staff who already have them have to register them with their line manager or will be regarded as having committed misconduct. Smacks of cracking a nut with a sledgehammer, surely? I'd be willing to bet that there are a fair few P.Cs in the Met (perhaps mostly female) who have small visible tattoos on the back of the neck, behind the ear, on the wrist, but I would be surprised if that many UK coppers have the type of hand and neck tattoos that probably spring to mind as we think of them on LST. Actually, if that's an incorrect assumption on my part and any London members can tell me otherwise I'd be interested to hear about it! Over here the rule of thumb is that if you have 'visible tattoos' such as a sleeve then a police officer will probably find themselves simply wearing long sleeves all the year around. What to do with something which cannot be covered easily is a trickier issue. I'll be interested to see how they eventually deal with the Met staff who do register these 'visible' hand, neck and face tattoos. Will that be the end of it, or will they be drummed out or into back-office roles?

I used to carry a Spyderco Delica for my work, or sometimes a Spyderco Rescue. Both were used for cutting ligatures, seatbelts, etc. Nowadays I just don't have the need anymore. I still have the Rescue in a compartment in my car, and a few bits and bobs around the office. The situation in Ireland is similar to that of the U.K. On a daily basis if you are carrying a knife or anything which can be improvised as a weapon then you need to be able to explain it in the context of your employment or some recreational reason. So there's no problem carrying a fishing knife along with your rod on your way down to the river, but if you're toting the same knife everywhere you go then that's an offence. I've got some nice carbon steel kitchen knives that we bought in Japan, and in Cambodia recently I bought a set of six hand-made steak knives. I like the fact that I actually use them on a daily basis in the kitchen: In the past I've bought some really nice custom knives and they ended up not being used for much of anything, really, they were so nice I didn't want to 'ruin' them, which is silly. I've sold most of them on over the years. Crappy pic-

Well, we had a pretty cool eight days in Cambodia. We arrived home yesterday morning, only for me to have to get on a plane for Holland four hours later- work... It was pack a bag, take a shower and back on a plane. Took some good shots of various temples we saw. Some really striking sculptures, particularly of giant naga (five headed serpents). When you walk through some of the temples at anghkor wat, or others the jungle has reclaimed, , and consider the scale of them you realise what a potent empire the Khmers must have been... ...Now:, not so much. It was a depressing trip in that you look around and realise how staggeringly poor the vast majority of the country is today: it's grim stuff in terms of the available health care etc. Hard not to feel like you're exploiting them somehow when you realise exactly how little things cost there. Recent Cambodian history is bloody. We saw S21, the Killing Fields etc. Found myself Wondering if in 30 years will we be wandering around similar exhibits in the former N. Korea? ... These camps exist under various regimes even now. Sounds like a heavy trip (and I didn't even mention the Mosquitos) but it was certainly memorable. On the plus side I managed to avoid getting food poisoning, unlike the missus (3 days .. Uh oh). I did like the khmers, I must say. They struck me as a naturally friendly people, which sounds a little cliched, but there you are.

@Brock Varty Toughing things out has a place, IMO, but I was talking more about injuries that suggest specifically contraindicated exercises as a result. Heavy bilateral squats could take a disc bulge and make it a herniation. If there are alternatives like a split squat, why not? Personally I still want to be training when I'm 80, so sure, I'll train smart rather than brave when it comes to injuries.

My take on working the lower body if you have a neck or back injury is that you've got to face facts that any bilateral squat with a bar, or deadlifts, will enable you to move enough weight that you could compress a problem disc or apply a shear force to it and aggravate the issue. Even at a lighter weight, with GVT you are doing 100 reps @ 60 per cent of 1rm. Safer than doing a bunch of 1-3 rep sets of near max effort, but that's still a lot of reps to be careful of. For back and neck issues seems like a lot of rugby and NFL go the route of the following on leg days:- -pushing prowlers and dragging sleds, various weights and protocols ie a mix of heavy and fast sprints -mike Boyle style unilateral leg work ie bulgarians, step ups, lunges. IF you're injury free though- yeah, 10x10 front squats would be great. I don't get why people take a protocol like GVT and then try and do it with single joint / isolation type movements instead of compound lifts.

@Colored Guy I always find it weird when people who volunteer a vaguely offensive remark to me about my tattoos get all offended when I respond in kind. It's like they think they can say what they like and expect no traffic back.

Kyle, yeah I saw the same thing re the 'second wind'. I wonder is there some neurological element to why that is...

Good idea for a thread. I'm getting a snake for my front piece (kicking off in nov). Maybe a kuniyoshi style warrior fighting a giant snake. Do people like scales or no scales? For me, I prefer the look of clearly delineated scales... Like that cobra. Looks awesome.

Thanks for the info guys. We've got malarone (sp?) for the anti-malarials, but I think the only place on our list which is border line malarial is angor wat. Should be a cool trip but yeah, it's a poor country, I'm sure there will be grim bits, particularly given the history.

Just left the con. My first time at the London show, so I have no idea how it compared to other years but... Wow, some amazing stuff happening already. Couldn't get any work done but wandered around hoovering up t-shirts... Said hello to Valerie from frith street (briefly, their stall was one of the busiest I saw)... Nice to meet a famous LSTer- and she was very nice. Some random pics. I hung out with the East Tattoo guys and had a cask ale. Good day. Attached = a black and grey front piece Yang was working on... Dark Star cask ale... @jade1955 take note!!