Birmingham law student with VK tattoo thought ‘long and hard’ about where to put it so he didn’t mess up his training contract chances

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By Katie King on

He went for his thigh in the end

An aspiring lawyer studying at the University of Birmingham has treated himself to a first term memento he’ll never forget: a tattoo of a bottle of VK.

WKD’s cheaper cousin, VK alcopops are the beverage of choice for many cash-strapped students. But the freshly-inked student, who Legal Cheek has chosen not to name, has taken his love of the cheerful refreshment one step further, buying himself a permanent homage to the drink that we can only imagine will really hurt him to look at when he’s hungover.

The Tab reports the inking was born out of a game of ‘odds on’ — usually played as a drinking game — between the law student and his Birmingham undergraduate pal. When he lost, he apparently headed down to a tattoo parlour and splashed out £40 on what he describes as his “jokes tattoo”. Legal Cheek has taken steps to contact the student.

Tattoos’ place in the conservative profession that is legal practice has to this day remained questionable. A Legal Cheek poll shows 60% of lawyers think visible tattoos remain unacceptable in their law firm or chambers.

Indeed, a tattoo-themed Legal Cheek career conundrum that ran last year threw up comments including: “it is reality that having a visible tattoo severely limits your options of working at a City firm”; “having [tattoos] on display is a risk as far as your employability is concerned”; and “visible tattoos are an indication of poor judgment… Poor judgment is not a quality that most law firms seek in their trainees”.

This is something the VK-branded student seems to be alive to. The Tab reports:

“As [he] studies law, he had to think long and hard about where on his body the tattoo went. After deciding that ‘having it on my bum would be bait because everyone does it’, he settled for his thigh.”

Whether he lives to regret his body art remains to be seen, but for now the only issue appears to be its (lack of) colour.

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VKs come in seven colours — orange, blue, yellow, pink, clear/silver, green and red — but unfortunately his tat is colourless because he couldn’t afford the extra ink. “Obviously yellow VKs are the best, but I didn’t want yellow skin, so I would’ve got red or green if I could afford it,” he recalls.

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