aka slag tag as I have also heard it called.

I'm ambivalent about tatoos but I do think their currency and heritage has been drastically reduced in recent years and I have seen some tatoos that make me wonder about the mental stability of the wearer. Tatoos used to be taboo but they're on a par these days with the kind of lifestyle choices and decision-making processes that people apply when considering the relative merits of what ringtone to opt for on their mobile.

My uncle was in the navy from the age of 15 and had numerous tatoos but, like The Illustrated Man, each one had a story and a reason. Some of those stories and reasons were emotionally painful to him but the "code" of the tatoo was such that he wanted to mark the emotional or psychological scar with a physical reminder. He wasn't a hard man - or I should say he was a hard man but he was not someone who felt the need to show that off - but he was a difficult man and the tatoos helped me and others understand what made him difficult. I wouldn't be over-stating to say they are windows on the soul for many people who have them.

Here are the views of Theodore Dalrymple. Any tattooed members of the massive who are easily offended may wish to look away now.

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/demello-dalrymple-2647

Free choice and all that... but I don't quite understand why people have tattoos.

I have enough trouble choosing a hairstyle, and always want to change it the next month. Same with the way I decorate my house, and how I choose to dress, my tastes change over time.

I just can't imagine finding a tattoo design that I'd be eager enough to have etched onto my skin, for the rest of my life.

is a model of how the unusual and exotic can be devalued by massive over-exposure.

A shame, in some way, that something once confined to a relatively narrowly defined slice of society has now become about as exotic and unusual as a cheap holiday in Thailand, or ownership of a widescreen TV.

It has never really appealed to me, but somehow it is even less attractive when one is confronted by it so frequently these days, often in badly or lazily ("I'll have one of them celtic armbands, mate") executed forms.

I have one tat , according to the above chart it is in the socially acceptable zone . I designed it and it is simply a tribute to the hamlet Lezaky which was wiped off the face of the earth by the Nazis .

Much like the celtic cross or the barbed wire, it's a fashion that's going to seriously date. I pity those who have them. Not everyone can be David Beckham.

nearly 40 years ago when it seemed that only sailors, fairground workers and criminals had them. Full old fashioned forearm job that 25 years later had faded badly and stopped him from getting into any decent bars.

He had it lasered off which took a good few sessions, cost a few hundred quid and hurt a lot more than having it done.

There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.