Tattoos are just a bit rock 'n' roll and I like it

It may be early into this column, but I feel I ought to offer a Twitter-esque caveat. You know the sort, 'all views my own', except, in this case, it would be something like 'This responsible family newspaper doesn't endorse tattoos; the author of this column has made his own choices, and more fool him….' or some such.

Many shudder at the thought of ink on skin but I think there's something deliciously rock'n'roll about it. Being tattooed is about pinning your colours to the mast, about being so consumed by a mood or a moment that you're prepared to live with it for the rest of your days.

Tattoos are commitment, they're permanence and discipline. You can't get the name 'Vera' tattooed to your arm, and then fall for Brenda. You can't get 'Boing Boing' inked across your back and then fall for Molineux's Gold and Black.

Tattoos are my guilty pleasure – and, hey, let's face it, there are worse things I could get up to. It's not as though I'm listening to Freddie Mercury records in an upstairs room.

In moments of reverie, I image becoming the Dave Gahan of Shropshire: the tattoo ninja, covered in quotes from Shakespeare, Egon Schiele drawings and aphoristic musings from Khalil Gibran.

The kids at my old school, in Tipton, had simpler preferences. At break times, they would use the sharp point from a drawing compass to pierce the skin of their knuckles and then squeeze the blue ink from a Bic pen into the open skin. Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot – five knuckles, five 'tats'. And not even a bill to show for their 'artwork'. They were a hard lot, to be fair, the type of crowd who pierced their ears with a needle from their mom's sewing kit at the weekend and drank vodka during the lunch break.

It's probably a decade since I had my first tattoo and it was very nearly disastrous. I did the usual balances and checks, making my decision and then giving myself a month-long 'cooling off' period, in case I changed my mind.

I didn't, however. I'd decided that the words 'Free Spirit' should be tattooed across the veins of my right wrist. Being an Italophile, I wanted them written in Italian. The translation was easy, or so I thought: Free Spirit is written 'Spirito Di Punto'… right?

I phoned the tattooist and booked my appointment for the following week. We talked about fonts, agreed a price and then he provided me a transfer bearing the legend, 'Spirito Di Punto'.

It was written in a beautiful palatino linotype script and looked stunning. My eyes gazed admiringly at the design, I measured it up against my wrist to see how it would look. Decision made.

On the eve of my appointment, my excitement built and I decided to investigate the origins of 'Spirito Di Punto', to see whether there were any neat historical stories that accompanied it.

I Googled greedily in search of information.

And then I realised that Spirito Di Punto was, in fact, the strap line for a Fiat Punto car and had as much to do with free spirits as American footballers do with Catholicism. The phrase I'd been seeking was, in fact, Spirito Libero, which means Free Spirit.

Happily there were a few hours to spare before my appointment and I was able to correct the design, rather than spend the rest of my days advertising the Italian automotive industry.

I often imagine what might have happened had I not discovered the error. While answering the regular – 'what does it mean' question in the pub I'd have had to say something like: "Erm, I really, really like Fiats." And that would have been unbelievable.