Formy 40th birthday, my wife took me to a jewler and we had one ear pierced. I'd love a tatoo - I've seen some excellent art, as Kim C suggests, BUT . . .

I have an unusual blood type (only 2-5% of us share it). When I donated blood for the first time, the blood bank asked if I would consider donating regularly - every eight weeks they tap me and draw a beaker or three. Before I'm allowed to bleed, I get two sets of 20-odd questions, one to fill out, and another verbally. One of them is:

"Have you had a tatoo or piercing?"

(By the way, another these days is, "Have you spent more than 6 months in the British Isles since 1996?" - mad cow disease phobia).

Last visit, I asked the lab tech what the problem was. He said that some tatoo artists reuse the ink by pouring what they've haven't used on client A back into the bottle. If client A has Hepatitis C, the rest of the clients are at risk, and so their blood is contaminated.

A damn shame, eh? I think we need tattoo artists to be certified by public health authorities as complying with good practices, so I could get the tattoo I want AND still donate blood.