Tattoo Noos

Having spent considerably longer than I would have wished at various airports over recent months it has been hard to ignore the increasing number of tattoos being displayed by people of all shapes and sizes as they jet off or return from some exotic location. At the turn of the last century Lydia the Tattooed Lady was an attraction at a freak show, as someone who has never felt the urge to express my personality with ink it is now me that it is feeling like a freak.

Apparently it is now called ‘body art’ - Hang on a minute! The Mona Lisa may have sported a few dodgy moustaches in text books in her time but I don’t recall her having a tattoo on her hand or face. Michelangelo never felt the urge to adorn his statue of David with a tat. When you create a masterpiece why spoil it with graffiti? Well that is my excuse for not wishing to blemish my pristine torso. Aficionados may argue that the complexity of some of the designs is art though for most people the effect is more akin to street graffiti.

To me, needles signify pain and there is no way I am going to permit anyone to start poking holes in my body even if it is in the name of art.

Most tattoo parlours still remain tucked away in back streets together with the dodgy taxi companies, questionable fast food outlets and private clubs (so I am told). To obtain a license for tattooing or skin piercing you need to demonstrate that you are a ‘fit and proper’ person to run such an establishment. To my mind, that is not sufficient proof of competence as a tattooist or as an artist.

Growing up many of my uncles sported tattoos they collected during the war, usually it was an anchor or the name of a loved one. War veterans may not want to talk about their wartime experience but I have yet to find one who did not want to talk about their tattoo.

Later on I became aware that there was a trend for both men and women to have discreet tokens tattooed on various parts of the body. Butterflies, spiders, hearts, stars, devils and dolphins started to appear on shoulders, ankles or wrists.

What struck me at the time was the number of people who later came to regret having the tattoo and either wished or took steps to have it removed. If like me you have little confidence in the abilities of those applying the tattoo then chances are you will have even less faith in the abilities of those removing them.

In the 80s, my employer maintained a strict policy on customer facing staff that while tattoos were permitted they were not allowed to be on show, which effectively meant that you needed to wear a jacket or long sleeve shirt if you were talking to a customer.

‘Tatu’ means a marking in Tahitian and they have been used for various purposes ever since Neolithic times. Some times they were used as badges with a particular significance, some times as ornamentation. When I look at the extent to which some people have taken the current trend it would seem to me to be less of a fashion statement than a sign of prosperity. It is hard sometimes to determine when a professional footballer scores a goal and removes his shirt, is he celebrating the goal or demonstrating his wealth by showing off his latest artwork?

Warriors used to have tattoos signifying their bravery. One of my school inmates glorified in the self-proclaimed hard-man monicker ‘Bone Crusher’ (which us mere mortals took to mean some ugly encounter with a chicken’s wish bone). He was the sort of child that only a mother could love, which I guess is why he had the word ‘Mum’ tattooed on his bicep. Those less kind would claim that it was a demonstration of the boundaries of his limited vocabulary. I mean, how ‘hard’ do you have to be to have the word ‘Mum’ tattooed on your arm? Maybe ‘Rhino Shagger’ or ‘I eat puppies’ would convey a more menacing image. Even the words ‘Bone Crusher’ would have made more sense, though he was not particularly macho and I don’t remember his biceps being particularly well defined anyway.

Smart money would say that ‘Mum’ would have objected to such a tattoo.

I can only imagine that there is an incredible amount of time needed to complete a large artwork and I suspect that it does not come cheap. From comments I have read most people choose to have tattoos that have a special significance or meaning in their life. Given that people’s circumstances and views change throughout their lives having something so permanent etched onto your body has the potential of coming back to bite you (possibly in the very place that the artwork is placed). Talking of which, I wince every time I see Cheryl Fernandez-Versini on TV. Not that I have anything against her or the floral tribute that covers her posterior, it is just that my granny used to have a pair of cushions with almost exactly the same design on. They too had a crack down the middle. Over the years they lost their shape and started to sag, which regrettably is what will happen to Cheryl’s backside in the fullness of time.

Who knows what prompts people to have a tattoo or why they select a particular design, for now the best I can think of is, as Cheryl would say, ‘Because I’m worth it’.