Friday 19thJuly

One of the advantages (or not) of living in London is that you never cease to be amazed by what passes as street fashion.  Today in the same tube carriage there was a young black woman with very dark skin and what appeared to be another, only larger, head on top of her own.  It was a concoction of her hair, braided and woven and shaped into a huge ball which sat atop her face.  It was quite amazing but despite this unusual spectacle my eyes were inexorably drawn to the woman who was sitting opposite me.

She had a tattooed tit.

Now in this hot weather it is quite usual to see larger and large areas of cleavage, a not unpleasant consequence of the current heatwave; but this woman was not displaying any more tit than acceptable, it was simply covered in a tattoo.  She was wearing or strapped into one of those cantilevered bras which thrust the goods out and tilting upwards, so that the tits lay like two coddled eggs in a basket.  The lady in question was probably late thirties, early forties and her tits though not large were probably already subject to gravity and if let loose would flop considerably.  Not that that makes them any less attractive when served up for inspection, which hers certainly were.  She had loads of make up on, and false eyelashes and porn-star nails and a few sparkly bracelets and rings and a real blingy watch ringed with sparkling (well I doubt if they were) diamonds.  High red strappy heels, a skimpy white blouse and short black skirt completed the ensemble.  But undoubtedly the most striking thing was that her right tit was tattooed.

Now, I am perfectly happy for anyone to tattoo any part of their body, but don’t ask me to join in.  As Sophia Loren once sang to Peter Sellers “Doctor Kitch, Oh no no no, I can’t stand the size of your needle.”  (How many of you remember that).  And I am sure that many young women have tattoos in places where only close friends ever see them.  But then if you have gone to the bother (and pain) of having your right bosom covered with shooting stars in red and green and blue why keep it to yourself.

I just wondered how far down the shooting stars went, and whether she had incorporated her nipple as Saturn maybe.  In fact it is quite possible that she was an astrology teacher and had half the cosmos tattooed on her tummy.  But please don’t even make me think of black holes – too early in the morning.