This, at least, was how it played out in my mind. The reality might have been somewhat different - "Get lost you butterfly-loving, tattooed creep, before I call the police" - but I felt certain that at least I would radiate coolness if I got the tatt. If not a butterfly, would I get a dragon or an eagle, or perhaps something dramatic such as a heart pierced by a dagger?

Up until a few years ago, cowardice ruled in the end and the thought of having someone take a drill to my flesh made me feel faint. Perhaps a tattoo of a chicken would have been more appropriate? Visions of a big-bellied, bearded tattooist wiping a bloodied needle on his blue-and-red-stained singlet filled my mind, and when I regained consciousness I decided I'd have to come up with another scheme to deceive women into thinking I was cool. This remains a work in progress but one of these days I'll crack it. There has to be a way.

I've had mates who've had tatts, one of whom had a bumblebee rendered on that part of his anatomy where you would least expect to find one. Certainly, I never met anyone who failed to be surprised by Lawrence's insect. Whenever we were at a party and the air was suddenly rent by a female shriek of horror and disgust, you could be reasonably certain that Lawrence had consumed one stubby too many and decided to show some poor young lady his bumblebee. As a social icebreaker, it had few equals.

If she were really lucky, he'd also flash the devil on his right buttock, the one with the shovel and the pile of coal at his feet. Coal? Shovel? Did I mention the flames? He also had flames tattooed on his rear, and if you think about these three elements for a moment, they do all come together. All in all, it was quite a tableau and one that caused many a fair maiden, and some who fell way short of what could reasonably be described as fair, to flee into the night.

Lawrence claimed he had gotten drunk in some Asian vice den and when he sobered up and went to use the bathroom conveniences, he unzipped and - voila! - there was the bumblebee. It had, he confessed, come as quite a shock but he said that after a while he had become rather fond of it. I never did ask him about the origins of the devil. There are some things you don't need to know.

Public swimming pools have always been my thing, despite the fact that I harbour an innate distrust of other people's standards of personal hygiene. So when the opportunity arose to visit the new attractions at the Wet 'n' Wild water park, I gleefully trotted along. It's not that I've reappraised my opinion of my fellows. I still don't trust them, but I was feeling particularly brave on this day and regardless, having a mental age of five, I really enjoy water parks.

Within minutes of arriving it became apparent that my fiancée and I were two of the very few people in the place with only one or with no tatts. Everywhere I looked, I was confronted by wobbling, jiggling, dangling bits of humanity covered in tattoos. You do a lot of queueing in water parks, which can test your patience, but since the body art explosion of recent years you can amuse yourself by checking out the tatts on the person standing in front of you.

Women and men, teenagers, the middle-aged, the thin, the fat and the ugly, all were walking human art galleries. There are times when cowardice has its rewards and, as I surveyed the scene, I was grateful that I stopped after getting one, small, symbolic tattoo on my arm.