Tatt’s the way to get you needled

Ariana Grande has had a tattoo disaster after it turned out a Japanese inking on her palm was left unfinished and now has the inspirational message ‘tiny BBQ grill’.

It reminds me of the killer whose gangland tattoo was believed by cops to be a traditional Triad marking. Expert translators were called in only to discover it actually spelt… ‘handbag’.

But my favourite cautionary tattoo tale remains that of another violent thug who had Love and Hate tattooed on the knuckles of each hand. That is until an unfortunate incident with his mum’s hedge trimmer. After which he was left with the word ‘hat’ tattooed on his right mitt.

What a titfer. BARBIE LOL Ariana’s ‘grill’ tattoo I’ve been loving this series of SAS Who Dares Wins featuring former Special Forces hard man and premier league swearer Ant Middleton.

Yes, I’m sure he could kill us with his bare hands. Yes, I accept he probably eats small children for breakfast. But, goodness, he doesn’t half remind me of Rylan. THERE was a time, not so long ago, when a chat with my friends revolved around the worries of caring for young children.

The sleepless nights, the efforts to get them to eat, the difficulties of entertaining them, and how best to encourage them to be independent.

In the blinking of an eye, everything and nothing has changed. Our conversations cover exactly the same topics. The worry is just as great for the health and security of those we love most. But now it is our parents, not children, keeping us awake at night.

I am fortunate in that my parents keep pretty fit and well at 80. But hardly any of my friends are so fortunate. Caring for elderly relatives is now the greatest pressure on most women of my age. We’ve more or less dragged kids through school only to be faced with an even greater challenge.

Which is why I wasn’t remotely surprised that 600 people – I’m guessing largely women – are leaving their jobs every day to look after a loved one.

One of my friends recently gave up her job in a bank to look after her mum as she slips further into Alzheimer’s Disease. Now she spends every other night sleeping on a floor in case her mum wakes up distressed and disoriented or needs helping to the toilet. Another friend and her sisters are driving themselves into the ground with a rota system of 24 hours a day care for their frail mother while they also try to juggle kids, husbands and jobs.

“Would you consider a carer?” I asked my friend Sally. “We tried, but it just made Mum worse,’ she said. “Sometimes they’d turn up, sometimes they wouldn’t. When they did, it was someone different each time, and they were in and out the house in the blink of an eye.”

And then, of course, there are care homes. Which, while perfect for many older people, are an absolute last resort for other families. Everyone’s experiences of carers and the care system is different.

But there is one absolute truth here – it is not good enough to cope with the enormous growing weight of need in the UK today.

Tory cuts have slashed what provision is available to the bone. State funding for social care has fallen by 27% since 2010, leaving 400,000 fewer people receiving professional care. It has become a system based on short cuts and short shrift for those in need.

Families can and will do their best for elderly loved ones. But we need a society which does its best for them too. For if we as a nation cannot care for those who once cared for us as children, it strikes me as a pretty rotten nation to be in. Say it’s not so... Aidan Turner has scythed his final sheaf. Yes, the last scene of season five has been filmed and it seems Poldark is riding off along that cliff edge for the final time. The man who put the ‘oh’ into open pit mining, the ‘phwoar’ into Porthgwarra and the ‘sigh’ into scything is going.

So long Aidan, and thanks for the ogling.

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Now it is our parents, not our children, who keep us awake at night