I’m going to quickly pass over my personal reasons for not having a tattoo (that of my complete and utter cowardice when it comes to pain coupled with an extremely indecisive nature) and pass on to the reasons that Dame Helen Mirren gave recently for both getting, and regretting, a tattoo.

"It was a very, very long time ago, when only sailors and Hell's Angels were tattooed, honestly, and prisoners and I decided to get a tattoo because it was the most shocking thing I could think of doing," she explained.

"And now I'm utterly disgusted and shocked because it's become completely mainstream, which is unacceptable to me."

You have to wonder how much more repugnant Dame Helen will find Chanel’s temporary tattoos when they hit stores, and various body parts, mid-February. It’s not just the price; though $78 for something so fleeting is a little gasp inducing. It’s not the memory of the temporary tattoos that we wore as children; usually accompanying some form of candy and lasting for all of five minutes before the pattern blurred and was indecipherable. It’s that the application of these transient tats turns the wearer into a walking billboard...they will, quite literally, have been 'branded'.