Dante's Handcart

Unique Markings

Dribbling like so much inverted corn syrup from the palsied man-pap of TDavid comes today's statbelch: apparently, recent research shows that 24% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 50 have at least one tattoo. As the wholesome dude himself scrawls:

"Assuming this study is accurate, odds are 1:4 of you [readers] are [tattooed]"

Skip with me like tinkling faeries over to that bastion of pomp the BBC and we also learn that, in their recent poll, a mere 17% of the nigh-on-nine-thousand questioned agreed that the UK should have ID cards. Allowing ourselves a little greasing of extrapolation in the trends of inking on either side of the Atlantic, dwellers of the Dante's Handcart thinktank might dare to suggest that Tony, the eminently sexy John Reid (himself spunking headlines like a sick snake lately over his political paedo-prison-pressure) and their cast of biometric bigwigs should perhaps look not to laminated cards but to developing tat-map technology.

In our experience the tattooed are even more keen on showing off their markings than an MP with a new riding crop; there should be little trouble guiding them through a complicated rig of cameras and thus immortalise their unique patterning. Add in the studded possibilities of piercings and there's another way to differentiate the proletariat. Before you know it, rather than queueing up to punch Mr Reid you'll be seeing him on the front of Skin Deep.

posted by Chris @ 9:10 pm