When the sailor was asked, why he married the fat, tattooed, lady he replied ; she gives me warmth in the winter, shade in the summer, and moving pictures all year round.

Back in 64 I was 16 year old sailor on a carrier that pulled into Hong Kong. Us young blokes all trooped up to Pinkies, the most famous tattoo artist in the world, to get the obligatory tattoo. Almost like a rite of passage for Australian sailors of the time. We had to wait whilst he pierced a woman's ear. We had enough beer in us to say hey - lets get an ear ring instead of a tattoo. This in a time when male piercings were unheard of. We thought we were the coolest things on the planet but our captain didn't. He was horrified to find several of his young sailors sporting ear rings. He was pretty astute though. His ruling came down that unless we could prove we had Gypsy blood in us within 48 hours we had to take them out. Well, we hadn't received any advice as to maintaining the hygiene of the piercing so in two days they were mightily infected and, as they were too painful to touch, we fronted up to the sickbay to have them removed. The doctor took one look and said; self-inflicted wound, pissoff. We ended up in the shipwright's shop with a plumber cutting out the ear rings with a pair of side cutters. Now that was a lesson that impacted on us, and I still didn't get the tattoo. All this knowledge was to no avail when the lady in my life became attracted to piercings, at the age of 48! Well Kat, the down south bells are a lot of fun and yes, the tinkling does leave some with furrowed brows.

JG/ F.M.E.