I watched “My tattoo addiction” on Channel 4 last Thursday night and I have to state that I was bewildered enough by the viewing spectacle to take to my keyboard and record my thoughts.

The programme, one of a series of three episodes, followed a variety of individuals that in effect use (or in my view abuse) their bodies to collect tattoos. Most of the characters looked scary, or ridiculous, or both; some were drunken revellers in foreign holiday resorts.

Every so often I watch something that gets me thinking that I must exist in a different reality because I just can’t relate to what I am seeing. My Tattoo Addiction was one of those slightly surreal viewing experiences.

To set the scene:

1) My body is free from ink and whilst there was a time in my teens when I was half tempted to indulge, I am bloody glad that I didn’t.

2) I grew up in a time when tats were still considered the sole preserve of blokes, the lower classes, the military, rebellious types or thugs/gangsters – you didn’t see them on girls, you didn’t see them on wimps and you didn’t see them on your parents.

3) I don’t really like tattoos although I genuinely don’t have a problem with people having one or two.

4) I concede that tattoos suit some people better than others – one geezer springs to mind, Swindon Steve’s a stocky, larger than life, gregarious fellow with an absolute sense of self belief and a view that occasional fisticuffs/ argy bargee is a perfectly acceptable source of entertainment. He has a sleeve of tattoos and they don’t look out of place.

So, with this emotional baggage, I watched the documentary with a view to expanding my horizons but with a few exceptions, and I’ll come to those at the end of this piece, I finished watching and felt like a grumpy old man. My views: the tattoo industry needs European regulation; idiots that barrel up to tattoo parlours drunk should be turned away, or the tattooists subject to legal proceedings; the medical profession should be investigating the long term effects of all the ink being applied to skin; people that want their faces tattooed should have to have independent counselling first and have to provide written evidence to the tattooist that it has been received.

The title for the series is the giveaway because the word ‘addiction’ is what makes for the challenging viewing. Still, I suppose if the title was “tattoos in moderation”, the documentary would be dull and/or unwatchable.

The characters being tattooed were getting large areas of their bodies covered (one chap, his whole face) in ‘art’ and, with scant regard for their appearances, were still planning on more.

I understand collecting behaviour well (in fact I have a number of collections of things that would make for decent museum type displays) but I don’t get how people can collect body art that is permanent. If I get bored of authors, bands, 70’s stuff, Seiko watches, Matchbox cars (or just need some money), I can move collections on – there’s just no stepping back from extensive tattooing.

Over the last decade or so, tats have gone from the side lines to the mainstream and these days on a beach or in the pool, as many people (male and female) have them as don’t. What’s more tats used to appear on biceps and forearms but now appear everywhere on the body.  Celebrities and sportspeople like David Beckham and Lewis Hamilton have tattoo sleeves and that’s a shame because youngsters think tattoos are cool because their idols have them.

The advice I’ll give my kids:

• If you are going to get a tattoo, you should give it plenty of thought beforehand, chat it through with someone who will challenge you. How can you choose something as a teenager that you can be confident will still suit you as a forty/fifty/sixty/seventy something? I bet that most adults wouldn’t be seen dead in the clothing they used to wear as teenagers and yet a tattoo they thought appropriate at 18 will still be on their body at 48.
• I’ll also share this story with them – when I was in my early twenties, I knew this old man who had a navy tattoo on his forearm. To me it looked like a black aubergine, the old boy actually had to stretch his skin to try and make it clearer what this black mass actually was and still I couldn’t have guessed.  I appreciate that modern inks and tattooing techniques are far advanced but the human body still ages in the same way.
• As you age – you will probably gain weight, you will get wrinkles, your body will change shape and your muscle mass will decrease – how good will your tattoos look then?

The documentary maker’s did interview some interesting characters and managed to introduce some genuine human interest angles that enhanced the viewing experience – a 28 year old women in the body of a nine year old child who wanted to have a tattoo to help her evidence her real age; and a lady in her forties who had a double mastectomy, followed by reconstructive surgery and then had nipples tattooed on to her new breasts.  For this people, tattoos helped them to have more normal lives and were something to be applauded. These people though defied the documentary’s title because they weren’t tattoo addicts, they were ‘ordinary’.

On the bright side, at least tattoo addiction is safer than drug addiction; and hopefully, whilst tattoo addiction will cost the owner a pretty penny, the ink addicts don’t fund their habits by thieving and mugging the innocent.

If you didn’t watch the programme, visit 4OD or catch one of the inevitable repeats.

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I have just finished “The Forgotten Soldier” written by Guy Sajer. The book is an account of the author’s experiences fighting in the German army on the Russian front from 1942-1945.

The autobiography is Sajer’s efforts at conveying the sheer horror of war and its psychological impact upon him.  The account is not a factual, historical account of the Wehrmacht’s Russian campaign but rather a recording of the emotional and physical destruction wrought upon him by constant fear, constant danger, continual loss of life, hunger, sickness, appalling winter weather and the complete loss of hope.

Sajer conveys his journey from an innocent 17 year old to a burnt out, emotionally scarred, wreck at 20 - whose mother didn’t even recognise him when he got home. Sajer’s bitterness is apparent throughout and the book is not easy or comfortable reading - in fact much of it is frankly depressing, but it is poignant and fascinating nonetheless.

The author makes no attempt to portray himself as a brave, heroic character or even to suggest his suffering was any different to his colleagues (in fact his belief in his pals was greater than his belief in himself).

Sajer’s survival is an incredible story of triumph over adversity, but it is not a celebration.  If you ever bemoan your lot, this account will make you realise just how lucky you are.

His honesty made me wonder how on earth I’d cope with even a fraction of his challenges. It also made me extremely grateful that I have never had to have the same experiences. 

More than twenty years ago now, I used to have a girlfriend whose grandfather fought in the British Navy in WW2. He was a bit like Grandad, or Uncle Albert form “Only Fools and Horses” in the sense that almost every tale he had to tell was based around an experience in the war.

I always listened, took an interest and asked questions, but at the back of my mind was the observation that his life in the years since the war must have lacked something – he’d got married, had kids, they in turn provided grandchildren, he worked until he retired and yet his life still revolved around 5/6 years of his 70-80 year life span. Being honest, I used to feel a little sad for him because by contrast, I was always looking forward to the next experience rather than reflecting on old ones.

Reading “The Forgotten Soldier” though helped me understand how soldiers, sailors, airmen could become so affected. After such terrible wartime experiences, day-to-day, normal life must have seemed vacuous, mundane, lethargic and pointless. Sajer undoubtedly wrote about his experiences to help him recover, Sue’s grandad was happy to talk.       

Having finished the book, I’d like to know how Sajer has lived his life since the end of the Second World War. I understand that he is still alive and that puts him in his late eighties; it is quite fitting that he should live for so long after facing so much hardship – during the war he thought every day would be his last and yet 68 years later he’s still alive.

Finally, this is a word-of-mouth book – my dad was lent it by a friend, he then passed it to me, I am now recommending it to you. Next time you think about reading an autobiography, don’t pick up some trashy outpouring from some starlet or short-term celebrity, read “The Forgotten Soldier” instead – it’s deep and meaningful and well worth the investment of your time.

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Whilst enjoying the latest episode, of Grand Designs, Kevin McCloud threw me with the use of an adjective that I’d never heard before - the word discombobulating! Not since pulchritudinous (but that’s another story) in November 2011 had I been so challenged.

Confused as to the meaning of this word, I had to resort to a dictionary – to find, in a bizarrely appropriate twist of events, that my state of confusion was literally the meaning of the word.

I did however wonder if Kevin was showing off by flaunting his advanced vocabulary or whether he had some kind of bet with someone - you know the kind of thing:

“Hey Kev, I bet you a tenner you couldn’t introduce discombobulating into the flow of conversation”  

Kevin “Ha ha, you improvisational skills doubter – make it twenty and I’ll put it in the right context too”.

Kevin McCloud has now set the bar high – I will expect more linguistic gems from him as the Grand Designs series unfolds.  

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I watched an interesting programme on Channel 4 last night that I’d recommend catching up with if you missed it. “Blackout” was a one-off dramatization based upon the potential societal impact of a prolonged power cut (in this case created by terrorism motivated cyber-hacking of the National Grid).

Filmed in a partially documentary style, the programme included footage of genuine riots, looting, police/protestor confrontation, gridlock scenarios, government COBRA meetings etc. In addition statements were flashed up about institutional readiness, disaster management plans and the technical impacts of power outages. A number of central characters were followed throughout their trials and tribulations which added the human, soap-like engagement with ‘real’ people in ‘real’ situations – some of whom died, some surmounted great challenge and others who broke the law and/or went ‘native’. It’s emotional stuff and cleverly created – you get a good guy that ends up doing something shocking and then a suspicious, tagged offender that turns out to be a good guy.

I have to say that the programme was very well made and was compelling, convincing, gritty, realistic and frankly depressing. The central tenet was that the society we all know and treasure would start to come apart at the seams, and quite quickly too, if such an event occurred.

In the film, the initial blackouts were received with humour and with resilience but then as the outages continued, things just got worse and worse - fuel stopped being available, the nation’s ‘valued’ CCTV infrastructure failed, supermarkets were cleared of food, batteries became a trading commodity, mobile phone networks went down, water ran out, people’s food started to run out and then they became hungry and desperate. This desperation in turn led to violence, murder, opportunistic theft, destruction and spiralling chaos.   

The portrayal was thought provoking but terribly bleak. If you’ve watched “28 days later”, “Blackout” has the same depressing impact. The suggestions being society is more fragile than you think; life is more fragile than you think; people will switch to a savage, self-preservation mode when threatened; and by inference people are naturally self-serving and aggressive and that ‘society’ is all that conditions the human being away from being just an intelligent animal.  

Clearly the programme was designed to have an impact, to make viewers think and to scare and to shock. Being cynical, the programme supported the government agendas of challenging terrorism, suggesting that terrorism is a higher risk than ever before and justifying the investment in CCTV as part of the means to keep you safe.

What didn’t get suggested once was that communities would pull together and help members cope with change. In the 1940’s the blitz proved that the British bulldog spirit of strength through adversity existed and why would that have vanished in the decades since?

The last year or so has seen the country hugely embrace the Olympics and massively support the Queen’s diamond jubilee. To me, these events, with their street parties and celebrations, suggest that society/community has a stronger hold on us all than the ‘Blackout’ film makers portray.

Watch the programme if you haven’t already; it is a powerful and thought provoking film even if it is not comfortable viewing. But don’t just accept the film maker’s bias, that society is paper thin. And if Blackout upsets you, then I recommend you watch the Hairy Bikers and their ‘Meals on Wheels’ programmes – they’ll cheer you up for certain.

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Occasionally I write about excellent customer service on this site; in fact the last post was about Zinc Sports is only a few days old.

Last Friday (6th September) though I had an experience of some completely inadequate corporate behaviour that I thought I’d publicise (especially as I could have been maimed).

During my commute from Daventry to my office in Milton Keynes, I was nearly involved in a collision with a Canute Distribution articulated truck. I was shaken up at the time and once in the office, decided to share my experience with the company.

If you visit the site you will appreciate that ‘contact us’ information is limited and hard to find. In fact I ended up submitting a sales enquiry but duly referenced as a ‘complaint and near accident.’

http://www.canutegroup.com/sales-enquiries/contact/

Here’s the detail of the note which was submitted via the Canute Distribution website:

Dear Sirs,

Just thought I’d let you know that one of your HGV drivers scared the life out of me in Milton Keynes today. I was a moment/inches away from getting my car written off as your driver pulled into my lane without seeing me. I had to lean on my horn and then pray your driver’s ears were working even though his eyesight had let him down. 

Fortunately the driver did register me and then swerved back into his original lane.

The incident occurred on Portway, just off of the Northfield Roundabout (itself the first roundabout after Junction 14 on the M1 – both of us turning right) at 8:08am this morning.

Unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to get the registration plate for the truck but given that you track your vehicles, you will know who was in the vicinity at that precise time. After Portway, your truck turned right into Tongwell Street.

I was shaken and am now angry enough to write this note to you.

I’ll look forward to hearing from you.

Adrian

To give you some further insight, the driver of the truck came off the M1 and headed down towards the Northfield Roundabout in the middle lane, only to switch into a lane to turn right at the last moment before entering the roundabout. He proceeded to turn right into Portway (H5) utilising all three lanes of the roundabout before exiting on the inside lane. I was following and came off the roundabout on to the outside lane of Portway and started passing the truck.

As I was alongside the cab, the driver started to pull across into my lane...

Back to the enquiry of Canute Distribution; having taken the time to write and having outlined a serious situation, I expected a response from the company. Amazingly, despite the fact I left my mobile phone number, email address and ‘marketing manager’ job title, I received back absolutely nothing. No acknowledgement, no ‘sorry’, no ‘we’ll investigate and come back to you’.

And that, to be frank, is just appalling.

I was annoyed that my Zafira could have been written off and I could have ended up mangled or worse. To be fair though, accidents, or near misses do happen and whilst the driver wasn’t paying attention, he hadn’t intended to cause a crash.  I am however furious that a note to the company resulted in no response at all.

Perhaps this post will change the outcome.

Whilst I will happily use my site to congratulate, I’ll also use it to challenge when I need to.

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A few articles presented on the BBC News website over the last few days have got me thinking.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23951747

The first is an article about prison suicides following on from the death of Ariel Castro. The American orientated piece was about the US prison authorities’ efforts to prevent inmates killing themselves (as opposed to others) whilst in custody.

The lengths that have been gone to in terms of cell and cell contents design not to mention, inmate supervision are quite considerable. My view; and I admit that this is completely uncharitable, is that if a tried and convicted felon, especially a twisted nutter like Ariel Castro wants to kill himself – why should too much effort be made to stop him? In Castro’s case, the world is a better place for his absence and the state/tax payers no longer have to fund a lifetime of incarceration.

The piece references the high profile UK prison suicides of Harold Shipman and Fred West. My question is does anybody give a damn that they killed themselves? I certainly struggle to care.  To be honest, when I read about Jon Venables (one of Jamie Bulger’s killers) being released from prison again, I find myself thinking that (in the absence of capital punishment in this country) maybe we should provide evil scumbags like him with a suicide kit and clear instructions about how to use it.*

In the States the situation is ludicrous, if I understand the last few lines of the BBC piece properly. The state owes prisoners a duty of care and the Supreme Court upholds it – I guess the inference being that an inmate’s family could sue a prison that didn’t take enough steps to stop their relatives killing themselves. This is in a country where the death sentence is still enforced.

Bonkers, totally bonkers!

From one death subject to another; a human extinction warning from Oxford University.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22002530

Interesting reading here – the biggest perceived threat to human extinction is our collective stupidity.

That’s not exactly how the verdict is presented but that’s what it means – essentially the human race is messing about with stuff it doesn’t understand (more specifically scientists, engineers and technologists). The examples; synthetic biology, nanotechnology, genetics fiddling (all right that’s not the technical term) and machine intelligence - essentially the human race is getting more intelligent, more successful at the same time as becoming a bit too clever for its own good and therefore stupid.

What a conundrum.

Whilst we scenario plan for natural disaster, disease pandemics, war, even asteroid hits, the suggestion is we lack the capacity to plan for the new risks. If you’ve ever watched the ‘Terminator’ series or read ‘Second Angel ‘ by Philip Kerr then you might have a better appreciation of the implications of Sean Coughlan’s observations.

Now science fiction hasn’t yet led to the creation of meaningful nuclear fusion power, the teleportation device or time travel but it might have predicted the end of the human race.

Now there’s a nice thought.

From another death subject to another death subject; this time - nuclear chaos at Fukushima.

Regular readers will know my concerns around nuclear power (fission this time). This article should be read because it delivers a worrying combination of science fact and what feels like science fiction (although I hope I am wrong).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23940214

For the last two years I have been reading the shocking news from the beleaguered plant (and have written about it on a few occasions too) but the fact is that the situation at Fukushima nuclear plant remains perilous. The latest scheme to stop the release of highly toxic water into the ground (and then into the water table and the sea) is a government funded ice barrier – as improbable as that sounds.

From an inconsequential death to warnings of doom, this article ends in gloom.  

It’s not going to work is it? The Japanese authorities and Tepco are surely clutching at straws?

*honestly I read the Guardian and the Times although appreciate you may think me a Daily Mail reader

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I have been so impressed by a piece of good old fashioned customer service today that I thought I’d share it with you all.

Some background first though; recently, whilst away on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales, my son was gutted to break his Zinc SMX Blue scooter. The issue that he had was that the locking bar that feeds through the deck and the upright snapped. This minor part failure meant the scooter was unusable because the upright wouldn’t stay, well upright, in relation to the deck.

When we arrived home over last weekend, I had a look to see if I could fix it by removing a similar part from an older smaller scooter. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be because the spindle from the smaller scooter wasn’t long enough to feed through the wider profiled upright on the SMX.

After scratching my head for a bit and thinking about alternative options (bodges), I decided to see if I could buy the necessary spare part.

A quick internet search revealed the site for this scooter and I got in touch with the company via its enquiries page. That was on 31 August 2013 (Saturday). On Monday 2nd September, Jo Patis from Hy Pro got back in touch and said "no problem, just send us your address and we’ll send one on". I duly provided the required info on the Monday night and I was delighted to get home from work this evening to find the part waiting for me. My lad’s scooter was duly fixed (once tea was done); and very pleased he was too.

So initial enquiry to repair – six days! That’s a great statistic.

The cost to me of the spare part £0 – that’s right absolutely nothing, and I would have paid too.

Outcome, both me and the boy ‘delighted’.

This post – proof that decent customer service costs nothing and yet pays dividends. In this instance for Zinc/Hy Pro, a blog post and a corporate Facebook post.

And Jo, thanks very much for your help. I hope you don’t mind the promotion.

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On the 16th August I went to Newmarket racecourse with my ten year old son and a number of friends.  Watching the horse racing, or betting on it, wasn’t the purpose of the visit – instead the trip into Cambridgeshire was undertaken in order to see a living legend of the rock’n’roll world – the larger than life “Meat Loaf”.

The trip was organised by my good friend Michael Costantini and my lad and I are extremely grateful to him for thinking of us.

The event heralded a few firsts because my son had never been to a gig before and, I, despite attending hundreds of gigs over the last few decades, had never seen Mister Loaf perform. In addition I had never been to a racecourse (well of the horsey variety anyway), experienced the sights and sounds of a race meeting or actually seen race horses galloping by from such close quarters. Finally I have never been to a rock gig that had a dress code excluding blue jeans, trainers, and tee shirts (the staple wardrobe of any self-respecting gig-going rocker).

At Newmarket the horse racing was the primary event and the gig was in effect the day’s cabaret performance. As such one’s personal attire was governed by the dress code rules for the racecourse and further compounded by the requirements of the premier/VIP enclosure that our tickets entitled us to access. 

Much of the clothing on show from males and females alike was expensive, often brightly (occasionally garishly) coloured, sometimes very business-like and in many instances - inappropriate for a night of jubilant dancing and singing. I saw fellas wearing suits made of bizarre cloth, or ladies dressed up like they were going to a film premiere – to be frank there was a whiff of catwalk mixed with a soupcon of narcissism and a tablespoon of attention seeking.  

The gig stage basically faced the finishing line of the course and given that you need to have premier tickets to get into that area, those turning up to listen to Meatloaf were required to meet the minimum attire standards considered fitting for ‘premier’ (or perhaps more fittingly, wealthy or posh) people. I don’t suit the preceding labels and will freely admit that I have never been to a gig in a collared shirt and wearing brogues. What’s more, I don’t expect to repeat the experience in the near future.

Attire requirements aside, the scene was set for a good night because the weather was glorious (and let’s face it, that makes a massive difference for an outdoor gig) and it was to be preceded by some entertaining people watching.

The Costantini party arrived around 5:30pm following a challenging journey up from St Albans in Friday afternoon traffic. The road trip was much improved by good conversation punctuated with signing along to the Meat Loaf CD in Mike’s Ford Galaxy. After some expensively (exorbitant might be a better adjective) priced fast food, we adjourned to the VIP enclosure to wait for Meat Loaf to take to the stage.

The kids, plural, because Mike brought his two eldest boys along were struggling with boredom during the wait but at around 8:00pm when the gig kicked-off and the serious fun began, the kids were as engaged as the adults.  

Over the next two hours Meat, renowned as a showman, performed with gusto and commitment. He belted out many of his most popular numbers including ‘Bat out of hell’, ‘Dead ringer for love’,’ I’d do anything for love’, ‘You took the words right out of my mouth’,’ Two out of three ain’t bad’ etc.

I danced and sang along to all these tunes but was delighted when Meat sang my favourite tune ‘Paradise by the dashboard light’. Years ago I learnt the words to this song, across all eight and a half minutes of it and have never forgotten them.  In my opinion this song is Meat Loaf’s equivalent of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody for pure singalongability (I made that word up). I sang along loudly, and admittedly badly, but really enjoyed myself.

The show had a passionate, lusty undercurrent and Meat, despite his age managed to flirt with his female backing singers in a way that was vaguely convincing and that suited his rock-God status. His younger backing singer, whose name I really should remember (28, beautiful, slim, big-boobed, peroxide blond,  occasionally dressed in leather basque, short leather skirt and hold-up fishnet stockings) was hot, admittedly in a clichéd kind of way, but just right for the show.

On the subject of sexual suggestion, at one point towards the end of the gig, Meat and his ‘girls’ came on to the stage holding what looked like enormous dildos. These proved to be compressed air canons that were loaded with tightly rolled white tee shirts (honestly the tee shirts looked like big tampons) that were fired into the audience.  Bizarre but amusing!  Fortunately the kids were unaware of the connotations and no difficult questions were asked.

Meat Loaf, is getting on a bit, he’s a pensioner and is not in the greatest of health; in fact a number of gigs on this tour have been cancelled due to his health problems and at times at Newmarket he looked tired and slightly doddery.  The ‘Last Bat Tour’ has been positioned as his last and it may well be (although of course that may prove to be nonsense). His voice wasn’t perfect all of the time - he hit a few duff notes and sang out of tune on occasion. Having stated that; he had enough energy to get to the end of the set and even perform an encore too.

During the set, Meat said to the audience that he expected people to love or loathe the concert and that indifference was unacceptable - in my opinion Meat rocked and I am bloody delighted that I got a chance to experience a Meat Loaf concert before the hero retires.

By the end of the evening, and perhaps fittingly, my voice was as hoarse as the equine surroundings.

Getting out of the course car park after the concert proved to be a challenge of similar duration to the gig itself but, like the trip up, it was made more bearable thanks to the CD based encore. If Meat Loaf hit some duff notes you should have heard the caterwauling from the Costantini party bus.

Mike – thanks again, you rock too.

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