My body is a clean sheet. I have no tattoos. I have scars, plenty of them, but no ‘ink’. A couple of Christmases ago we were in India, walking in the glorious sunshine down the main street in Goa when we came across a tattoo parlour. As you would in Goa. Next to the shop selling ivory elephants. Across from the ‘British Pub’ offering ‘full English breakfasts’. And I saw the tattoo place and said to Mel, ‘come on, let’s go get tattoos; one each’. And I almost meant it. I realise there is nothing sadder than fresh ink on a middle-aged body, but if Mel had agreed, I’d have even faced up to my lifelong needle-phobia and got drawn upon. But of course, she just laughed, not giving the suggestion the credibility it warranted. She assumed I was joking. “Just a little one” I said.”You have the ‘yin’ and I’ll have the ‘yang’, under our armpits where no-one will see them. Soles of our feet. On our bums. Or maybe a 9 inch swastika across the centre of our faces?”

But the question is always, particularly, I’d imagine for the first tattoo, what do you have? What symbol, word(s), picture can you paint PERMANENTLY that you choose it to represent something/someone/everything? A drawing so profound it summarises your very soul.

A Tottenham cockerel, obviously. Don’t think Mel would be so keen. Our names in hearts? Not too nauseating. Our children’s names, in case we forget them when we’re really old? Lila?? Though she wasn’t born then. A pair of glasses? A Bugatti? An anchor? A portrait of Ant & Dec, with Ant shaded out?

But at no stage did I consider a gun. Why would you? Unless you were into gun culture or any other resident of Texas, Florida, Alabama… or Raheem Sterling. Who, in case you missed it, chose to have not just any gun but an M16 assault rifle inked onto his right calf. And, particularly with just 3 weeks to go before the World Cup and Raheem one of our absolute stars, the first question to ask is: who fucking cares? He’s a footballer. They have no sense, just loads of money which they like to convert into pictures all over themselves. There’s no ‘meaning’, there’s no logic, no train of thought, its just ink. Wayne Rooney has a fuck-off cross on his arm. Which he possibly covered when out shagging over-age prostitutes whilst his wife was pregnant. It doesn’t mean anything. Certainly, in Wayne’s case, no sense of faith, belief or morality, heaven forbid.

Anti-gun people are making all sorts of accusations about ‘glamourising gun crime’ and ‘role models’ and shit, but it is just shit. Its a tattoo. In Raheem’s case, one of many. None of which probably mean any more than the sanskrit text on his forearm which he was told translated as: ‘light is life’ or some pseudo-philosophical tosh, but which actually reads: ‘another stupid, gullible Englishman who can’t read Sanskrit’.

Looking for arguments about the meaning of tattoos is daft. Leave the poor twit alone.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx