As long as local papers have grumpy older columnists, we will continue to get inane opinion pieces on the horror of tattoos and body piercing. There's actually something charming about Lehigh Valley News writer Paul Carpenter's column "Dorney Park is right to ban tattoos" — it's nonsense, but it comes from a proud tradition of nonsense.
This morning we heard that "psycho loose cannon" actor Alex Pettyfer has "Thank You" tattooed above his penis, "in case I forget to say it." Now V Man, the magazine that quoted Pettyfer on that, has kindly provided photographic evidence of said crotch tattoo. Unfortunately, since the web versions of their photos are kind of small. I feel like I'm squinting at a too-small line of text at the opthamologist's office.
Paul Croft, a working-class bloke from Nottingham, had a giant tattoo of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore etched on his back—a gesture meant to surprise and delight his five Potter-obsessed children. We think it's safe to say that of the many dangers Croft tried to anticipate in subjecting himself to the painful and permanent procedure, the after-the-fact outing of the character by the author at a public lecture in New York City was not one of them:
