Best not to ink about it

The bearing of flesh in summer can have some unintended consequences, finds Eve Jones, as she’s greeted with the sight of some unusual tattoos in unlikely places

THE other day I watched that Channel 4 programme Tattoo Fixers. If you haven’t seen it, general premise is some twit goes on the super smash in Shagaluf, drinks five pints and 37 Jägerbombs, stumbles into a tattoo shop with a mate and get’s the poo emoji daubed on his arse by a sweaty tattoo “artist”. Next day, he comes to and realises HE’S had a poo EMOJI TATTOED on HIS arse and, funnily enough, needs a solution. But instead of thinking, “I know, I’ll save up to get this removed and, in the meantime, I do actually wear pants and trousers, so it’s ok”, Twit goes on national TV to another (less sweaty) tattoo artist and gets an even bigger tattoo on his arse to cover it up. This time, he has a huge lion’s head, because he’s always felt like he has an affinity with lions, despite the fact he’s never seen one outside Whipsnade Zoo (because he spends all his money on trips to magaluf, Jägermeister and poo emoji tattoos), so is doomed to a life staring at his own butt cheek to confirm this affinity.

You get the idea. I don’t really care about Twit’s bum but at this time of year it’s easy to see how such a TV show was commissioned. Summer, in true sun’s-out-guns-out fashion, presents us with a smorgasbord of rubbish tattoos. Lately, I’ve seen at least two vomit-yellow Tweety pies teetering on cleavages, several mauri symbols draped on puny shoulders and some monstrous, fullthighed rose garters on anaemic-legged girls. all, I hope, the result of getting trolleyed in magaluf rather than sober choice.

Quite clearly, I write with the annoyingly smug reserve of one happily un-inked. I’m not actually averse to tattoos per se, unlike my mum, who is deeply anti. When my brother came home as a 30-year-old man with a medieval skull on his chest, and I spied it under his T-shirt, his first reaction was to shrill, “DON”T TELL mum!” Dan is a medieval historian. he writes enormous books and presents very clever history stuff on the telly. he’s also now intensely inky. I’m not sure whether his historically tattooed sleeves and torso are an attempt to eschew the perception that all historians are sue-deel-bowed, tweed-jacketed old duffers or whether it has more to with his man-crush on David Beckham but, given he’s appeared in Heat magazine as the “hot historian” before, it’s clearly working for someone.

I understand that for many people tattoos are personal, psychological or emotional emblems – that I can entertain. I’m just amazed how many end up being completely pants. Is having “Granny 4 EVA” so “she’s with you always” sensible? It’s asking for a good haunting, if you ask me. They’re either down to shyster tattoo artists – who should have advised you that, “barbed wire on your face is a bit niche” – or debilitating British politeness, an innate inability to say, “Don’t do it like that, it’s rubbish.” a colleague recounted her attempt at getting a cantering horse tattoo, which she’d asked the tattoo artist to design. on inspecting the draft, she pointed out that horses’ legs are supposed to have knees or, at least, hind legs should not have knees but ‘elbows’ or ‘hocks’. She, in impressively un-british style, told the designer she stank and backed out.

A possible solution is invisible tattoos that only show up in ultraviolet light. This vaguely appealed to me and I considered getting a horse shoe on my wrist to show only in clubs. on reflection, I decided that even if it didn’t give me a toxic blood disease, I’d probably just look like a w **** r, so I left it.

I do like the tattoo amusement factor, though. The army is a boundless source of inky wonder. Several officers in the Light Dragoons are rumoured to have elephants’ trunks in their boxers but, sadly girls, just in the form of two regimental elephants bonking on their bottoms. Several rural bods take a witty approach, too. a friend has her family cattle brand on her hip and one young British polo player is said to have peter rabbit on one bum cheek and a Tazmanian devil playing polo on a pig on the other.

In the 2000s, a trend for tattoos at the base of a girl’s back was labelled “tramp stamps” (the simultaneous trend of low-slung jeans meant elaborate suns often appeared to shine, literally, out of the bearer’s bottom). one diehard ag student’s attempt to revive the craze with a John Deere tramp stamp has, sadly, been less emulated. I know of an entire Snaffles painting on one chap’s forearm, inspired by admiral Lord Charles Beresford’s infamous tattoo, perhaps. This, recalled in the house of Lords by Lord ailwyn in 1967 during a discussion on the impact of tattoos on minors, was “the panorama of a complete hunt, in full cry, travelling down the great man’s back: horses, hounds, and the fox. Well, my Lords, the fox was gradually disappearing. The pursuit was in a North to South direction.” The fox’s brush was at the crack of his bum cheeks but the fox had gone to ground…

It seems I don’t have the emotional depth or creativity needed to daub my inner thoughts onto my outer body. or maybe I can’t help thinking how these tats will look in coming years. They’re all very well if you’re a svelte and tight-skinned canvas but the majority of people aren’t, are they? Thankfully, I’d need a boyfriend before I could consider “hearting” him about my person. I could get a convincing pink jelly on my bottom right now, I suppose, but think of the waste. It would have slithered off the plate by the time I’m in my eighties.

The Light Dragoons are well known for having elephants’ trunks in their officers’ boxers