h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Funnily enough, the only group with a ban on tattoos are those big softy US Marines

Bunch of pansies!

"The US Marines are banning the wearing of large tattoos, saying they do not represent "traditional values". "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6505181.stm

Unlike the usual USMC "gung ho, shoot everything" traditional values

That's I thought when you said it, that it would be because they don't meet with American Values. Of course torturing people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanmo Bay are fine.

I've toyed with the idea of a tattoo for quite a while

Something Celtic, since I lived in Eire for a good proportion of my life. It's where my lads were conceived and brought up

I couldn't decide "where" though/

Oddly enough I solved the "something Celtic" problem without even thinking about it

Its my 50th birthday soon, and my lads have contributed £50.00 pounds each ("Lets face it mum, we can afford to pay you a quid a year - each") to buy me something special.

I've chosen a Topaz signet ring, (Topaz being my birth stone)with celtic style shoulders.

I don't want a tattoo any more; the ring says it all about "me"

I'm glad I only toyed with the idea. A piece of jewelry can be passed on. A tattoo can't.

Tsk, what a bunch of jesses.

Oh... be kind. It's a very young country. It's not their fault

>>I don't want a tattoo any more; the ring says it all about "me"

Gosh! I'd feel awful if I thought everything about me could be said by a ring. Or a tattoo. "I am large and contain many multitudes" - Walt Whitman. (Did 'e just call me a fat bastard?).

I'm not fundamentally against tattoos - but they're not for me. They're too permanent an expression of the self. I hope to never settle on who I am. I'm caught up in a whirlwind and my ever-changing moods.



Speaking of pansies...(SWL will like this). During WWII, there were so many RN ships that they started to run out of names. Committees of the great and the good were assembled to devise new naming schemes. One settled on types of garden flower. This is how we ended up with the minesweeper HMS Pansy. (true story!)

"My name is Legion: for we are many."

Almost true Ed

In fact we had a whole class of ships called the Flower class corvettes. Slow and poorly armed, they were designed as convoy escorts. I had a 3ft scale model in my bedroom when I was a kid. The Navy had over 200 of them.

One was called HMS Pink

Ah. I remembered they were something small.

I think they could have picked a better name for the second Type 45 Destroyer than HMS Dauntless. It sound like a urinal.

My Grandpop's favourite joke:
"Can you tell me where the urinal is?"
"Aye - she's that Greek ship in No. 3 berth."

My favourite navy story came from when Churchill went to meet Roosevelt in WWII. Churchill went by sea on a battlewagon and the small fleet was met mid-Atlantic by the US Navy. The US flagship signalled -

"Greetings from the world's biggest navy to the world's oldest"

Quick as a flash the battlewagon signalled back -

"Fraternal greetings to the world's biggest navy from the world's best navy"



Or - the Queen Elizabeth was arguably the most famous ship afloat when she was commandeered as a troopship. One dark night whilst steaming past Gibraltar a shore-based lookout signalled "What Ship? What Ship?". The Queen Elizabeth replied "What Rock? What Rock?".

My major objection to tats is that they start off looking bright and crisp. Before long they just look like a blue bruise.

And I suppose the permenancy is a bit of a problem for me personally.

I had a pony tail 20 years ago.

What a t**t I looked. I don't have it any more. (Actually I don't have enough hair to make one )

PP

I'll repost number 53 with an asterisk!

My main problem with tats is that they start off all colourful and crisp but before long end up looking like a blue bruise.

I used to have a pony tail 20 years ago.

Looking back I looked a tw*t. (Actually I don't have enough hair to make one any more )

PP

(How's that? Is it really that offensive to refer to one's self as a *wa*?)

when I was in the Army the WRAC weren't allowed tattoos. One of the girls who wanted to join up with me was refused because of hers (which would only have been visible in one of those rather delightful PT skirts we had)

I love my tattoos, i didn't think it was that painful (but they are not directly over bones) and the tattoo guy told me that usually it's only the men who say it's painful, and quite young women (I'd guess he was getting at the fact that I have children and after that only toothache is painful )

>>(How's that? Is it really that offensive to refer to one's self as a *wa*?)

*uc*! That's clever.

Old one-liner...
Stewardess: "Would yo like some TWA coffee or..."


Anyway...I get it now. SWL was enticd into the Royal Navy by his childhood discovery that they had ships called 'HMS Pansy' and 'HMS Pink'. "That's the life for me!" he thought.

I'm ambivalent about tattoos on women - used to think they were sexy but they're a bit too overdone now.

I was in a club in Prague a few years back, where there were two dancers on podiums (not erotic ones, you understand). I remember how surprising it seemed to me at the time, pleasantly so in fact, that neither of them had any tattoos or body piercings. Seeing an "unmodified" female has become an unusual occurence, in the UK at least.

So...you are certain they didn't have body piercings...and yet you describe them as 'not erotic'?

Yes, the tattooo and piercing have perhaps lost some of their intrigue...

>>I'd guess he was getting at the fact that I have children

Jo Brand:
"If men want to understand what it's like having a baby - just imagine having an Action Man extracted through the hole at the end of your willy......I'm sorry, some people might have found that distasteful. It's not nice to think of militaristic toys for children."