​(...) Sailors. Prisoners. Bikers. Tattoos in the Western world were once the mark of the outcast, of the rocker and the rebel - of a certain kind of macho culture.

And yet now when the latest celebrity tattoo is revealed the gist of the discussion is usually an evaluation of the merits of the design, of the choice of Sanskrit or Latin script rather than the fact a

public figure is displaying a prominent tattoo. (...)

It's now just an everyday thing. An event like the International London Tattoo Convention can attract thousands of punters, queuing round the block to get tattoos and to witness the human canvasses covered in eye-wateringly intricate designs.

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Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine