James Perry, one of the hopefuls in the current series of MasterChef, has proven his devotion to the culinary cause by having the programme's logo tattooed just above his right breast.
Pah. Perry is a lightweight. When it comes to proving one's commitment to the cause(s), there is only one Idiot King, and that is me. I have had the logo of every magazine I have worked for on a full-time basis inked upon my person, not to mention a quote from The Wire, financed by the PR company that was putting out series 5 of the box set. Club (an adult magazine, popular in the States) proudly sits on my right shoulder, Loaded and Nuts on my lower and upper back respectively, while my inner right forearm is home to "a man's gotta have a code: Omar".
"Why do it to yourself?" say my girlfriends, around about the time that they dump me. Well, I feel a great deal of affection for anybody deluded enough to offer me full-time employment, and if I can communicate that affection through a permanent etching of their masthead, then it is my duty to do so. Plus I figure it makes me more difficult to fire. And I really like The Wire.
The celebrated tattooist Louis Molloy once told me there's a theory that some people get inked because they don't like their bodies. When I look in the mirror, I do see a fleshy lump, but it has been neither improved nor destroyed by the designs thereon. By the time I had two magazine logos, it just didn't seem to matter how many more I got. So when people ask if I would consider the Practical Caravan logo if I worked for them, I inform them very seriously that yes, I would.
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