I hate the poxy tabloids – rubbish red-tops – lazy bloody journos the lot of ‘em. Full of made up bollocks and sensationalism. But I hate poxy ad men more. Those jumped up little cretins in their designer red rimmed glasses and snazzy braces (see we can stereotype too wankers!) sitting in their shabby little offices, scrapping the barrell to come up with yet another  hackneyed excuse for an ad campaign.

Step forward the tossers who came up with this garbage for Suzuki – you know who you are… and what’s more so do I! This ad campaign is running currently in the Scum and other red top tabloids.

You can just imagine it can’t you…

…it’s friday afternoon – they’re up against a deadline (who cares, life goes on etc) and they’ve just got back from the poncy wine bar …

‘Oh Nigel we need to get this campaign wrapped up before we nip off to pick up the charlie from wossisname’,

‘Ooh I know Colin, lets brainstorm this one and get some lines racked up’.

Seconds pass by… tick, tick, tick…

‘Oooh I’ve got it Nig!’,

‘Go for it Colin!’….

‘You know how tattooists can’t spell right?’,

‘Really Colin, is that true?’,

‘Oh who cares, everyone know they’re all thick, that’s why they just draw on people for a living, so no-one will care, it’ll be a laugh!’,

‘Ok Colin, hit me with it…’,

‘Well Nig, we’ll have a model bloke who looks like a tattooist a bit, but hasn’t got any tattoos right, but we can draw some on, no-one will notice…, and he’ll be doing a tattoo right, on this big blokes back, and… here’s the sell right… he’s spelt the tattoo wrong! It’ll be wicked, we’ll get the campaign finished, and we can get down and sort the charlie right!’.

‘Ooh Nig you’re a bloody creative genius you are!’

‘Sorted!’

Well that’s what I imagine happened in the Suzuki ad men’s shabby office anyway – because if they had any brain they’d find that we tattoo artists aren’t thick – I have an National Diploma in Art & Design thanks – we can actually write and spell too. Some of us get together regularly to make the tattoo world a safer and better place for the rest of you, lobbying parliament, holding educational seminars for environmental health officers and taking on the big boys…

Besides which tattooists in the modern world use computers for lettering design and have ‘spell checkers’!

So to you sorry ad twats at Suzuki – absolutely NO ‘RESPLECT’ you cocks. Next time you want to stereotype an art that takes a lot of hard work and pure skill to do well, pick on something else…  maybe advertising eh? Doh! that’s not an art, unless it’s the art of bullshit of course!

Oh shit, better make a… wait for it…. ‘Swift Exit!’

Lame doesn’t even come close…

Had a few requests for a follow up from us to the blog below about the twats in the latest series of LA Ink, masquarading as tattooists etc.

Well, I’m pleased to tell you they’ve all been Fired! Sacked, Given The Elbow – about time too.

This is good news.

The bad news is the crumby network have obviously got contracts to honour and now we keep being subjected to ‘insights’ into their increasingly banale and tedious lives.

Look you tossers, the studio (American Electric) they now all work in is shit, they talk shit, the tattoos are shit,  so stop wasting our fucking viewing time okay! Just give us the luscious Kat Von D and her crew and leave out the shit.

POST FROM MARCH…

The Missing L(A)ink(s)

Is it just me or has the latest series of the (alleged) popular tattoo ‘reality’ TV show LA Ink become a total pile of steaming poo? Every episode now seems to focus solely on some air-head bimbo twat called Oooorbreeee, who hasn’t got a fuckin’ clue how to work in a tattoo shop. The rest of the crew, especially Cory Miller,  hate her guts and let her know it (like you would) and it’s all ‘drama’, ‘drama’, ‘drama’ – well if you call constantly bursting into tears all the time because you’re useless – ‘drama’ – It’s unbelievable!

And to make it worse they’ve got a tattooer who’s an untattooed ‘nu yawker’, called Pooorleee, who’s about as good at tattooing as I am at brain surgery! What a fuckin’ loser – Wanker.

And if that ain’t enough, there’s some freaky looking ‘make up’ artist, turned tattooer, Aaimmmeeee. Man you’ve got to see her – the make up is amazing – like your two year old daughter got let loose with nan’s make up bag, but not as good…

Each week it just gets worse – hardly any decent artwork any more – just scripted ‘drama’

FUCK OFF! We deserve better…

Time for a whinge!

I’ve been doing this blog for a while now, happily tapping away on my keyboard, hoping to write stuff that someone out there might enjoy reading. So every day I get the comments on my posts emailed in and at first I was encouraged that there were quite a few. Wicked! I thought, nice to get feedback. Then I started to notice an increase in the junk comments and realised that most of these comments are posted by people or companies that are only interested in getting advertising or porn! Some are just long streams of utter gobbledegook (phew that was hard!) that have no relation to anything, let alone english!

Now they’re really starting to piss me off – there’s so many – every day. Honestly you wouldn’t believe it… everything from Christian Dating(!) to Romance Academy (findmesomeone.org!) to Discount Shoes to any kind of bloody insurance you can think of! Fuck me, it’s a joke. What I want to know is WHY? What do you think they hope to get out of it? Apart from just filling my trash they’re totally wasting cyber space.

So my message to you ‘so called bloggers’ – who ain’t, is FUCK OFF! Just stop it and let the real people who have valid comments to make – make them.

Dimitris from Hellenic Stixis, Athens

Once again Seven Sins Tattoo is proud to announce that our friend Dimitris from Hellenic Stixis Tattoo in Athens will be guesting in the studio from 2 May till 18 May. If you want to get an absolutely unique, one-off, hand poked custom tattoo please contact us on 01293 775385 for an appointment.
Check out Dimtris’s work at www.myspace.com/lakedaimoniostixis

As a tattoo artist I get really pissed off with people who come in when we open (at 11am), give me that ‘You’re lucky, I start work at 4 in the morning’ look, and say ‘must be nice to start work this late! Half day is it?…’ Wankers! What they and all you others who think we just live a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle (thanks LA Ink!), don’t realise is all the work we do before we open and after we shut.

A normal day starts with taking the kids to school for 8.15 (early enough and rock ‘n’ roll enough for you?), coming home and getting breakfast. Then aim  to get to the shop by 9am-(ish). On goes the computer to answer all the emails, along with a double shot cappuccino. This is always hard work – ‘how much is a tattoo?’ being the benchmark! This can take up to an hour, sorting designs, quotes, appointments etc etc, binning the Viagra ads (got plenty at the moment ta).  Then it’s checking the diary for the day ahead, making sure the designs are ready for each customer, calling customers who’s designs I’ve got drawn up,  and checking that we have a few moments sometime during the day to eat lunch (quite rare most days). Then it’s inspecting the work stations for supplies, cleanliness etc, and another double shot cappuccino.

Once the doors are open at 11am, it’s heads down, non-stop tattooing all day, interspersed with giving quotes for tattoos, taking designs, answering the phone, answering customers questions ‘how much is a tattoo?’ - told you it’s the benchmark, ‘where’s the toilet?’ (a close second) and so on. At 6pm we stop (apart from Ben, who’s usually running late). Then it’s cleaning… everywhere. Vacuuming, mopping, bin emptying, etc etc, then cashing up, which usually involves chasing the guys who’ve inevitably forgotten something they’ve done, ‘cos it doesn’t add up.

If I’m lucky I can be home for 7pm, in time to have dinner with Mrs Sinner and the kids, maybe give them a bath (not Mrs Sinner, she can usually manage herself) read them a story or two and put them to bed (see it’s SO rock ‘n’ roll!).

Then it’s back to the computer, checking the days emails, editing and uploading photos for the website and writing this blog. Hopefully this won’t take long – then it’s out with the pencils and onto drawing up tattoo designs for customers – and believe me we have loads and loads of them to do. So if you’ve left us a design to draw up, my apologies… we’ll get it done as soon as we can! Normally I can’t draw past about midnight – my eyes start to hurt bad and I begin to dribble and nod off onto my art pad! Hopefully by then I’ve got a couple of drawings done for future tattoos.

At last it’s off to bed… then the alarm goes off… and it’s back to groundhog day again…

So, there you have it. Not rock ‘n’ roll. Not 9 till 5. Not fucking easy OK!

But after all is said and done, it’s brilliant and I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

Keep inking all you lovely Sinners!

Read the rest of this entry »

Billy ‘The Billboard’ Gibby is an amateur boxer with 19 company logos tattooed on him. The 29 year old is the first person in the world to have an advert for a website inked on his cheeks!

He got into it when he started to give blood, his attention grabbed by the plight of people waiting for transfusions and organ replacements. He gave blood every two weeks and signed up to be an organ donor after his death, but still wanted to do more. After surfing the web he found a profile of a woman that needed a kidney and went on to find he was a perfect match. But due to geography he couldn’t afford the flight, so inspired by Ricky Hatton’s temporary tattoo in a boxing match, he got GoldenPalace.com tattooed on his back and earned the money for the flight, donated the kidney and now continues to make money getting company logos tattooed on him.

You have to ask yourself, how much would you want to get the ‘Favourite Chicken’ logo tattooed on your forehead? What would be the stupidest or maybe the coolest logo to get on your face? Let us know how much you’d want for this kind of work. Go on, really it brightens up our day and makes us laugh!

After the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti in January which claimed thousands of lives, the response to give aid is enormous. Two of the latest people to join the task of helping raise money are Dr David J Ores and Michelle Steckhert of Dare Devil Tattoo in New York who have formed Ink4Haiti. The duo are asking tattooists worldwide to help raise money be donating their earnings from one tattoo they create in 2010, anything from a small symbol to an entire backpiece, whatever the artist can afford to donate. So here at Seven Sins we’re more than willing to help this worthy cause, so get in touch of you want to get involved. The tattoos chosen to make the donations will be featured on the Ink4Haitiblogspot.com website.