One more...

...non-football related thread before match day finally rolls around for us.

I know you guys are probably sick of non-football threads, but I thought I'd take time off from procrastinating while I'm meant to be writing a uni essay due in in half an hour that probably isn't going to get done.

Just wondering where people stand on tattoos and the likes. Have any? If so, what where why etc etc. If not, why not and such.
You know the drill.

Don't have any myself, at the age of 19. Been wanting one for a while, but as I can't make up my mind what I want to get I see no point getting one just for the sake of it.

Was mulling over the idea of the words 'Modern Life is Rubbish' somewhere...it being a Blur album and them being my favourite band since I was very small and the fact I entirely agree with those words. Modern life sucks.
Or some little guy I draw a lot.

So yeah, what's your story?

 

No tattoos. I wear my scars instead.

Oh, I'm also scared of needles.

 

Needles kinda freak me out too. But I think that's mainly injections. I might be fine with tattooing needles like. If I look away. And close my eyes. And wear a blindfold. In the dark.

 

I'd need a general anaesthetic I reckon before I could face it.

 

Don't have any...Was about £30 away from getting a sleeve when I first turned 18 (was at a summer camp in america and a lad there had the first Japanese sleeve I'd seen that wasn't on GTA) and was reeeeeeeeally tempted, glad I didn't now though as it seems like sleeves are the new tribal tattoos, which were the new barbed wire rings on the bicep...All good and well if you've got one, but I'm pretentious and would want something original!

 

I'm pretentious in the way I say I hate pretentious people and want to be original myself. I do dislike pretentious people though. I'd hate to meet me.

Maybe it's now cool to not have any tattoos. Everyone gets them nowadays.

 

I fear we may be similar...I do English at uni (including creative writing poetry, prose and drama) so it's difficult to avoid a bit of pretension here and there but I always find myself trying desperately to avoid it...Wrote a poem about Newcastle the other week, as much as I'd love to say it displayed my working class roots and demonstrated my down-to-earth-ed-ness, it didn't, it was pretentious as ****!

 

More similar than we thought it seems, I also do English at uni =P English and American Literature to be precise.
I wrote a poem the other week about how I hate the fashion business. And a short story entitled 'Trains' which was basically a Bryson-esque/beat generation type rant on how I hate train travel, written whilst actually on a train.
It was an attempt to show individuality but probably just showed how pretentious I was, but in my own non-pretentious way.
Creative writing is tricky business.

 

really can't see the appeal in tattoos. alot of people say they're "personal" but what's ****ing personal about a dolphin on your foot or some stars on your wrist?

just don't get it. some amazing artwork but i much prefer grafitti! used to grafitti me tits of til i got caught when i was 15 so i packed it in, travelled all over on the metro looking for somewhere to, ahem, "create" some "artwork"!

 

i was more thinking of some weird symbol. I wouldn't go for anything basic or cliched, like stars like every single ****er has.

the words modern life is rubbish would, to me, be rather fitting. blur are a band i've loved since I was very small. Blur were my first love before NUFC. (Loved Blur from the Country House song, which was 1995, at the tender age of 3/4. It's the first song I can remember liking...3 years previous to falling in love with NUFC at the age of 6 during France 98 due to a love of Alan Shearer, I believe) and it's a statement that fits my own personal views. I'm still living in the 80s and early 90s...even though I was, in reality, only born in the early 90s

My friend, for example, has the words 'Just a perfect day' on his arm, due to it being his late-father's favourite song. Tattoos can be fitting tributes as well as a symbol of one's personal views. Or just to look cool ha. I'd only get a weird symbol/picture that no one else has, like the face of some crazy guy I tend to doodle a lot, or an adapted version of the writer's Franz Kafka's stick men drawings. Just for kicks.

 

I have "RIP Bartons Tash" across by bottom.

 

Where is the 'o'?

<shudder>

 

This. I've wanted a full sleeve tattoo for about 2 years now, doubt I will though.

 

Anything to save a bit of dosh, why pay for the 'o'?

 

I'm interested to know which produces the biggest amount of ****.

 

I dont have any, just the idea of having something branded on me forever, and I worry it would look crap when I'm old and wrinkly. Occasionally think about getting the NUFC badge on my chest or arm.

 

hahaha!

 

Certainly is, I've been doing it as part of my course for 2 years now...Last year I got pretty disappointing marks in my first full collection of poems, of which the ones that were the most technically demanding got ripped to pieces, and the ones that were quickly just knocked up to fill the gaps got praised...The marker was clearly full of ****, 'cause 2 of the ones that were ripped have since been published - biggest **** you possible I think.

It's so subjective, one's man masterpiece is another's toilet paper! Do you do it as part of your course or just for hte craic?

I did a module in American Literature last year, lots of Whitman and his transcendentalist buddies!

 

Currently in my first year, so have to do creative writing as part of it. Doing like poetry, creative writing, American Literature, American Culture, renaissance drama (way too much Shakespeare...not a fan! overrated is the term I'd use) etc.
I'm not a huge fan of writing poetry myself if I'm honest, I much prefer short stories etc. Big fan of like Kafka, some of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, some Bill Bryson stuff.
Currently choosing modules for my second year, interested in picking beat generation, some module focusing on American blues and alternative rock, and a creative writing course. Or there one focusing on British writing which I'm hoping would cover James Joyce or Irvine Welsh.

My tutor didn't much like the rant aspect of my short story I did the other week, just commented on the fact the stop start aspect makes it like the chugga chugga of a train. Which I hadn't intended, but there you go. It's intended to be a stream of consciousness though, so that's how I kept it. As you say, one mans masterpiece is anothers toilet paper.
Best piece of American Literature we've done so far was Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby, huge fan of the book as I had read it beforehand.

 

Gotta be honest, I can't stand Joyce - the man was insanely talented but Ulysses nearly killed me last year!!! Plus, doing a degree over in Ireland, him, Ciaran Carson and Seamus Heaney are treated like gods and rammed down our throats!

I'd never written poetry until doing it as part of the course and then I really took to it, although I couldn't really refer to myself as a poet. Think my stuff sounds a lot more like Mike Skinner from the Streets than W.H.Auden...Tend to talk about stuff I know, so drink, hangovers, going out and the like...

Shakespeare is certainly highly rated, and there's certain stuff that is celebrated PURELY 'cause it's Shakespeare, but the point at which I actually started appreciating him was when I had to write my own sonnet...The amount of technical and metaphorical things you have to balance is a joke and he did it throughout huge plays - hats off to him like!