Got a tattoo with my girlfriend

– It will be a bit early to tattoo “Sandra”. Come back in five, six years.

Peter Paulsen – “Knallis” among friends – smiles playfully at his girlfriend who sits across from him.

Besides this unmistakable stench of youthful love, the room is also filled with a vague and constant vibration. It is a needle that hammers ink into the skin of the sailor from Senja, who of course does not prefer a mine.

– Are you nervous?

– Not over the tattoo, more over this interview.

First interview

This is the first time Paulsen meets the press by virtue of being the better half of one of the country’s most famous and popular politicians.

Sp-top Sandra Borch – former Minister of Agriculture – smiles while her boyfriend now gets the municipal coat of arms of Tranøy Municipality immortalized on his left forearm: A curved, black halibut.

– It will be so cool, says Borch.

The two met before the summer of last year, while she was still an untattooed minister in Jonas Gahr Støre’s government.

– We have a great time together, says Paulsen, who would rather talk ink than romance.

– Tranøy municipality disappeared through forced amalgamation. The politicians destroyed my home municipality, so this will be a small memory, says Paulsen, while the halibut darkens on his arm.

Tightly

The boyfriend is quick to correct the impression.

– No, Peter. Erna Solberg destroyed. Don’t blame this on the rest of us, says Borch.

Paulsen has two tattoos from before: An anchor on his arm, because he is a sailor. And a TIL logo on the back, presumably because he wants to hurt himself.

No curl

Tattoo artist Dinson Purcell works concentrated on the artwork while the couple and Dagbladet’s correspondents chat about possible artworks to print on the body – the discussion is hypothetically. The studio walls in Skippergata in central Oslo are full of motifs. Suddenly it turns out that Sandra Borch has been inspired. Now something is happening!

– I also have to take another one, she says quite spontaneously.

Borch is becoming a regular customer for Purcell. She was here yesterday (!) and took a sheep on the wrist. Her very first tattoo. Borch proudly displayed it at the Storting today. Everyone – even Sp-nestor and well-known tattis skeptic Marit Arnstad – has given their approval of the sheep tattoo.

– Today I want to take a small lamb next to the sheep, says Borch firmly.

Tattoo artist Purcell checks the schedule: No creases.

– I have time afterwards, he says.

Reverse psychology

It was her boyfriend who encouraged Sandra Borch to get her first tattoo. Paulsen mastered the art of getting a politician to do something he doesn’t really want:

– I just told Sandra that I didn’t think she was going to dry. Then she was quick to want to do it, says Paulsen and laughs.

– But I was absolutely sure that she would stab after the first stab, he adds.

That didn’t happen, and now Borch has been bitten by the ink bacillus.

– I love sheep, so it was a perfect motif. For me, sheep is predator politics, and it is the farm at home with mum and dad in Lavangen. I’m actually going up there this weekend to take part in lambing. It’s something I didn’t get to do when I was in government, so I’m really looking forward to it.

Paulsen’s forearm is fully tattooed and wrapped in foil. Now it’s Sandra Borch’s turn to feel the paralysis.

Lambing

With determined steps, she walks over to the (butcher’s) bench and gets a lamb immortalized next to the day-fresh sheep. It’s done in a few minutes.

– Perfect! A sweet little lamb, says Borch and shows off the little sheep family she will care for forever.

– Tattoo of a wolf must be perfect next time?

– Ha, ha! It must be a dead wolf in that case.