A black-and-white photo of a person mid-air in a Superman-style body suspension pose, supported by multiple hooks in their back and legs, smiling joyfully toward the camera. They are suspended horizontally in a large indoor space with high ceilings and visible rigging. A group of onlookers—some seated, some standing—watch with expressions of admiration, amusement, and support. The atmosphere is lively and communal, capturing a moment of shared experience and transformation.

Full Coverage: Links From All Over (Nov. 7, 2008)


[Daily Mail] God this is the worst article ever. Local idiot Liz Jones chimes in with over 1,000 miserable words about how every tattoo a woman wears is a “tramp stamp” (and not just those placed in the manner displayed on the comely young lass in the above photo), and how all these misguided starlets are just ripping each other off forever and ever, with regard to everything:

Yes, I am talking about tattoos, the most tasteless, tacky, tawdry, terrible plague to infect our nation since mad cow disease.

Ha ha oh right, this clown is from Britain, where everybody gets BSE all the time, probably because the cows are all tattoo sluts. Tattoos are definitely worse than bacteria prions that eat your goddamn brain.

It is nigh on impossible these days to find a young, famous, beautiful woman who has not got a tattoo.

A reasonable person may notice this trend and note that perhaps there has been a paradigm shift and that, hey, pretty girls like tattoos, so maybe they’re not this uglifying force that some have thought them to be. Alas.

Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen has 12, including the word ‘float’ on her throat, while English rose Lily Donaldson has just the one – words of nonsense about her family on the inside of her left wrist.

What we can take away from this is that Liz Jones does not have a family, because she buried them under her house, but if she did, she would surely not do something as stupid as get any “words of nonsense” about them tattooed on her body. She would not “feel” any “feelings” about them, or try to “remember” or “pay tribute” to them. Because she is nature’s most perfect, soulless killing machine.

Musicians have long adored tattoos: Janis Joplin had a floral tattoo bracelet, which has clearly inspired the tattoos sported by Joss Stone, who has garlands of flowers on her feet.

The words “clearly inspired” suggest a direct causal relationship. I’ve never listened to Joss Stone and probably could not pick her out of a line-up — is there any reason to believe that she got flower tattoos because Janis Joplin did first? Based on the nonsense that comprises the rest of this article, I’m going to guess no, and that in addition to being a sensationalist, Liz Jones is also a piss-poor logician.

What I hate most about all these celebrity tattoos is not just that they have spawned a rash of copycats the length and breadth of the nation, it is that tattoo wearers think that by writing on themselves, a la Angelina Jolie, they are somehow ‘alternative’, ‘deep’ and ‘profound’, that they have meaning in their lives.

Wow, she is still talking. I’ve skipped several hundred words already and this thing just keeps going. I feel like I’ve always been reading this.

I particularly detest the tattooing of names of loved ones, a la Johnny Depp and his ‘Winona Forever’, or David Beckham and his tattoo of his son Brooklyn’s name. It is as if the person is trying to say: ‘I love my son/boyfriend/wife more than you love yours.’

Someone’s projecting!

When I mentioned this saddest incarnation of the tat to Helen Mirren, who has the Indian Lakesh symbol, meaning ‘whole woman’, inscribed just below the thumb on her left hand, she rolled her eyes. (Helen Mirren is, by the way, the only woman in her 60s I can think of who doesn’t look ridiculous sporting a tattoo).

She got hers when she was drunk one night on a theatre tour in Minnesota. ‘It was years before tattoos became fashionable. I’m appalled they have become middle class,’ she said. ‘There is no respect for rebellion any more.’

For what it’s worth, Helen Mirren, in addition to being a pretty tremendous actor, also thinks that date-rape is a hilarious joke and that woman should just get over it, so perhaps she is not the most astute cultural observer of all time.

Jones then ends the article by telling a brief story about her friend’s grandmother, who is a holocaust survivor, and thus has a concentration camp number tattooed on her wrist. According to Liz Jones, this is the only sort of tattoo that it is acceptable for a person to have nowadays.

[News.com.au] Here we’ve got an uncharacteristically positive story about Body Integrity Identity Disorder and amputation as a viable course of action for those suffering from it. The proponent, Christopher Ryan, is a psychiatrist at the University of Sydney, and, while he doesn’t propose just cold cutting off folks’s legs whenever they want, he does admit that, after the proper evaluations have been done, many can be effectively “cured,” and that such procedures should be “likened to plastic surgery.”

“I realise that the idea strikes almost everyone as lunatic when they first hear it. However, there are a small number of people who see themselves, and have always seen themselves, as amputees,” he said.

“They are often miserable their whole lives because of their ‘extra limb’, and we know that at least some of them feel much better if it is removed.”

Comments

84 responses to “Full Coverage: Links From All Over (Nov. 7, 2008)”

  1. r4v3n Avatar
    r4v3n

    lol this is great. i love stupid people.

  2. r4v3n Avatar
    r4v3n

    lol this is great. i love stupid people.

  3. Gem Avatar
    Gem

    Can’t help but think of a certain Fry and Laurie quote (I’m paraphrasing a little here) “… I read the Daily Mail, I just prefer it to a newspaper”

  4. Gem Avatar
    Gem

    Can’t help but think of a certain Fry and Laurie quote (I’m paraphrasing a little here) “… I read the Daily Mail, I just prefer it to a newspaper”

  5. BARF Avatar
    BARF

    I can’t wait to see you again.

  6. BARF Avatar
    BARF

    I can’t wait to see you again.

  7. natalie Avatar
    natalie

    When I started reading this I should have known it was by someone like Liz Jones.

    Ahem:

    “…while English rose Lily Donaldson has just the one – words of nonsense about her family on the inside of her left wrist.”

    This is coming from a woman who writes articles for the Daily Mail’s Sunday magazine which, when it comes down to it, basically consists of a whole lot of whining.
    The following is a brief summary of the life story she has and is gracing us lucky British people with: how awful her husband was and how she wanted a divorce so she could be free and happy again (he cheated on her multiple times…you can begin to see why), a play-by-play of the details of her separation, her stuggle to make her new life by herself work and become happy, and then some more whining, because she still isn’t happy.

  8. natalie Avatar
    natalie

    When I started reading this I should have known it was by someone like Liz Jones.

    Ahem:

    “…while English rose Lily Donaldson has just the one – words of nonsense about her family on the inside of her left wrist.”

    This is coming from a woman who writes articles for the Daily Mail’s Sunday magazine which, when it comes down to it, basically consists of a whole lot of whining.
    The following is a brief summary of the life story she has and is gracing us lucky British people with: how awful her husband was and how she wanted a divorce so she could be free and happy again (he cheated on her multiple times…you can begin to see why), a play-by-play of the details of her separation, her stuggle to make her new life by herself work and become happy, and then some more whining, because she still isn’t happy.

  9. Torben Avatar

    Your comments for to the article (not the user comments above) are equally ignorant! I feel like you wasted my time with your one-sided opinion, luckily I didn’t finish reading that nonsense.

  10. Torben Avatar

    Your comments for to the article (not the user comments above) are equally ignorant! I feel like you wasted my time with your one-sided opinion, luckily I didn’t finish reading that nonsense.

  11. jenn Avatar
    jenn

    I’m actually less bothered by the article itself (I expect nothing short of idiocy from raggy journalists who couldn’t research an article properly if their lives depended on it) than I am that so many people agreed with it. Tasteless, horrendous, repulsive, disgusting, mutilation, disgusting, trashy, classless, disfiguring, hideous… every time I read a comment I find an adjective that really bothers me more than anything else does. I will definitely be going ahead with my tattoos, and I really doubt I’ll ever regret them, but it’s disappointing knowing the kinds of reactions I’m going to be getting.

  12. jenn Avatar
    jenn

    I’m actually less bothered by the article itself (I expect nothing short of idiocy from raggy journalists who couldn’t research an article properly if their lives depended on it) than I am that so many people agreed with it. Tasteless, horrendous, repulsive, disgusting, mutilation, disgusting, trashy, classless, disfiguring, hideous… every time I read a comment I find an adjective that really bothers me more than anything else does. I will definitely be going ahead with my tattoos, and I really doubt I’ll ever regret them, but it’s disappointing knowing the kinds of reactions I’m going to be getting.

  13. Shoe Avatar
    Shoe

    oh THATS who liz jones is. if id have realised its that same liz jones who whines about her ex husband and prefers her horses to men, i wouldn’t have bothered reading the article. shes like a little girl pretending to be a journalist. bless.

  14. Shoe Avatar
    Shoe

    oh THATS who liz jones is. if id have realised its that same liz jones who whines about her ex husband and prefers her horses to men, i wouldn’t have bothered reading the article. shes like a little girl pretending to be a journalist. bless.

  15. Stormchaser Avatar

    @ Brit (No 1): You are not Britain, these people do unserstand humor, satirics and irony.
    @ Sugar lippy (No 18): The best ans simple-most comment would be that this fuckass “Jones” is simply an ignorant dumb asshole. But to do a bit fun about that trah was a quite decent, nice idea
    @ Torben (No 30): The same. Why not replying onesided agains dumbfuck???

    That article shows the quality of that toilet-paper, which is seriously much worse, that anything here in France, in Austria od in Germany (even die “Bild” is quality), this paper equals the sun, this paper destroys intelligence and mind of the reader, this paper is kind of mental violence against the customers.
    What ever Liz Jones is – she is an irnorant dumpfuck, not worth to think about.
    While it is not worth to think about this bloody heap of shit, it is worth to thing (and quarrel) about what it is doing to the brains of the readers.

  16. Stormchaser Avatar

    @ Brit (No 1): You are not Britain, these people do unserstand humor, satirics and irony.
    @ Sugar lippy (No 18): The best ans simple-most comment would be that this fuckass “Jones” is simply an ignorant dumb asshole. But to do a bit fun about that trah was a quite decent, nice idea
    @ Torben (No 30): The same. Why not replying onesided agains dumbfuck???

    That article shows the quality of that toilet-paper, which is seriously much worse, that anything here in France, in Austria od in Germany (even die “Bild” is quality), this paper equals the sun, this paper destroys intelligence and mind of the reader, this paper is kind of mental violence against the customers.
    What ever Liz Jones is – she is an irnorant dumpfuck, not worth to think about.
    While it is not worth to think about this bloody heap of shit, it is worth to thing (and quarrel) about what it is doing to the brains of the readers.

  17. mung Avatar

    great tat!!

  18. mung Avatar

    great tat!!

  19. Jessyka Avatar
    Jessyka

    “And while the agony of having a tattoo has been likened to childbirth – the most painful areas are anywhere that is bony, and on the tender flesh of the inside of the wrist – ”

    Where did she hear that? Wrist is not painful at all! Silly lady…

  20. Jessyka Avatar
    Jessyka

    “And while the agony of having a tattoo has been likened to childbirth – the most painful areas are anywhere that is bony, and on the tender flesh of the inside of the wrist – ”

    Where did she hear that? Wrist is not painful at all! Silly lady…

  21. Somanachronistic Avatar
    Somanachronistic

    14 – i was just about to type something similar. He has some points but none seem his opinion or well written

  22. Somanachronistic Avatar
    Somanachronistic

    14 – i was just about to type something similar. He has some points but none seem his opinion or well written

  23. RedMolotov Avatar

    cardboardfrog – The Mail is owned by DMGT, not News Corp. I agree with pretty much everything else though.

    Ironically enough, Paul Dacre (mail editor) is on the news this morning having made a speech bemoaning the concept of privacy vis a vis the press. He seems to think that his own moral compass gives him the right to legislate on what constitutes privacy vs public interest above that of a high-court judge.

    Oh and a shameless plug: http://www.redmolotov.com/catalogue/tshirts/all/daily-mail-warned-you-about-tshirt.html

  24. RedMolotov Avatar

    cardboardfrog – The Mail is owned by DMGT, not News Corp. I agree with pretty much everything else though.

    Ironically enough, Paul Dacre (mail editor) is on the news this morning having made a speech bemoaning the concept of privacy vis a vis the press. He seems to think that his own moral compass gives him the right to legislate on what constitutes privacy vs public interest above that of a high-court judge.

    Oh and a shameless plug: http://www.redmolotov.com/catalogue/tshirts/all/daily-mail-warned-you-about-tshirt.html

  25. BesuKaiju Avatar

    Oh Liz Jones… Bless…

    After reading her weekly column in a sunday supplement, I think it would be fair to say that this woman doesn’t really treat life for living at all. She needs to get out of the house away from her cats more often.

  26. BesuKaiju Avatar

    Oh Liz Jones… Bless…

    After reading her weekly column in a sunday supplement, I think it would be fair to say that this woman doesn’t really treat life for living at all. She needs to get out of the house away from her cats more often.

  27. Drew Avatar
    Drew

    @ anamorphic. that website: http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/49722/1225847832/dailymailfrontpage.jpg is fucking hilarious. I cant really believe shit like that is actually printed. Esp. since it wasn’t even printed in the good ol’ prejudice US of A.

    god people are fucking stupid

  28. Drew Avatar
    Drew

    @ anamorphic. that website: http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/49722/1225847832/dailymailfrontpage.jpg is fucking hilarious. I cant really believe shit like that is actually printed. Esp. since it wasn’t even printed in the good ol’ prejudice US of A.

    god people are fucking stupid

  29. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    Russell Howard on British Tabloids:
    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq5_joo5l5I

  30. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    Russell Howard on British Tabloids:
    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq5_joo5l5I

  31. hannah Avatar
    hannah

    39- it isn’t actually printed. it’s a spoof, hinting at the racism of the daily mail newspaper.

  32. hannah Avatar
    hannah

    39- it isn’t actually printed. it’s a spoof, hinting at the racism of the daily mail newspaper.

  33. Paxton Avatar

    Just so you know, anyone with more common sense than a retarded infant in Britain knows that the Daily Fail is one of the biggest heaps of shite in the entire country, and are therefore completely unsurprised by any of this.

  34. Paxton Avatar

    Just so you know, anyone with more common sense than a retarded infant in Britain knows that the Daily Fail is one of the biggest heaps of shite in the entire country, and are therefore completely unsurprised by any of this.

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