Andy Richardson: Think before you ink

A cheeky aphorism about love, a maxim about endurance, a proverb about self-restraint or an apothegm about courage does for me what cider apples do for orchard pigs.

My passion for proverbs has been good for business at the local tattoo parlour. Over time, truisms from Churchill, Muhammed Ali and Lou Reed have been inked beneath my skin. My arms have started to look a bit like brainyquote.com, gradually filling up with dictums and axioms – oh, and a dedication to my son. My limbs have been transformed in to canvas. My inner arm is a page upon which lifelong codes and beliefs are inked.

Not that things have always gone to plan. My first tattoo very nearly ended up being an advert for an Italian car after I failed to check an Italian-English translation.

I’d been thinking about inking and decided on something discreet: ‘free spirit’. A passion for all-things Italian encouraged me towards a translation – except I very nearly got it wrong. At the time of my predilection, Fiat were screening an advert for their Punto car. It had the strapline Spirito Di Punto. For reasons that my autistic brain still hasn’t fathomed, I incorrectly imagined those words meant free spirit. They didn’t. Doh. They meant ‘come and buy this really nice Italian car’, while the translation actually said ‘point spirit’. And I haven’t a clue what point spirit means.

Armed with a commitment to my first tattoo and a desire to have spirito di punto etched onto my arm, I called the tattooist. I selected a font – Palatino, since you ask, which was named after a 16th century master Italian calligrapher – and booked myself in. I emailed the guy the design, he gave me a price and I booked the tattoo in Bilston for a fiver, you can’t beat that. I thought no more of it.

On the night before my appointment, I decided to double check. I typed Spirito Di Punto into an internet search engine and praised the power of Google Translate when I realised I still had time to stop the tattooist from incorrectly etching a car advert onto my inside wrist.

“Erm, I’ve got the words wrong.” I said. “Spirito Di Punto is an advert for an Italian car. It doesn’t mean ‘free spirit’ at all. So hold that tattoo pen right there, buster, before we both do ourselves a mischief.” Error spotted, I corrected the design and got the right tattoo: Spirito Libero. And there began an ongoing fascination with ink.

When I lost a much-loved relative, I got a little Churchill tattooed on the other inner wrist. And so my beloved nan rides with me every day, reminding me of her message whenever I’m not feeling strong. When my kid was born, I got a little Lou Reed inscribed along with the precise date and time and his full name. He’d emerged as the delivery suite radio was playing Perfect Day, by Lou Reed. It was. And I have the words to prove it. That moment was immortalised in head and heart with a permanent reminder on an inner bicep. Tattooing his date of birth was also a genius idea. Every time I’ve stumbled when required to fill out a form, I’ve simply had a peek at my arm to remind myself of his birthday. Sorted.

When my kid and I faced the sort of difficulties that no father and child should face, I got another note-to-self inscribed on the other inner bicep. It was a Muhammed Ali quote: Don’t quit, suffer now, and live the rest of your life a champion.’

You might think it unwise, therefore, that I should go and watch films that are a veritable feast of quotes. Vignettes of wisdom pour from the screen in Gary Oldham’s marvellous Darkest Hour, an extraordinary film in which the brilliant and mercurial Gary plays Churchill in the early years of his premiership, defying the Nazi advance.

Far be it from me to spoil it for anyone daft enough not to have seen it, but as the credits roll at the end of the screen, a Churchill quote appears: ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts.’

And so a blank space will be filled with words that resonate. God damn that Mr Churchill and all his intelligently articulated wisdom.

There’s another Churchill quote that I’m drawn to and it’s this. You must put your head into the lion’s mouth if the performance is to be a success, but I’ll save that for another day.

Now, where is that tattooist’s number? I need to book an appointment.