What motivates a person to permanently mark their body with a tattoo? What is so vital it needs expressing in such a definitive way? These are questions that have puzzled Patrick Mulford for his entire adult life. So at the beginning of 2007 he decided to travel around the world in search of answers.



In this the first volume of his ‘Tattoo Journals’ he comes face to face with the world’s oldest tattooed man, a 5,300 year-old Italian named Ötzi, before partying with the Hells Angel Motorcycle Club at a tattoo convention in Prague. He then travels to South East Asia in search of a lost headhunting tribe in the rainforests of Malaysian Borneo.



The Tattoo Journals are an unlikely collection of adventure stories that burrow right to the heart of the human condition - uncovering unsettling truths about personal identity and prejudice. Ultimately the journals become a personal journey that leads the author to go under the needle for the first time.