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Shortage of ink

HAVING spent some time in Swindon of late, I realise that the Referendum is taking all of the publicity. Am I the only person who realises that there will soon be an acute shortage of ink?

Why? Because, I see many girls, men, women, etc, with loads of coloured ink running down their legs, around their arms and other various parts of the body.

I see biceps marked with a barbed wire picture that makes the statement… “I’m hard as nails”... Yeah right! Pictures of roses on the female anatomy, stating, “I will lay down half-naked while some guy with a beard jams sharp needles into my skin”.

Lots of these ‘whims’ mean that many employers will take one look and think, “You are only capable of making stupid choices” , that will consign them to living off their parents for many years to come. All okay when the flesh is taut but what happens when age creeps in?

The tattoo of Narnia will look like coloured vomit when age takes over. At least the tattoo of a grape will look like a raisin when they are older!

I’ve also yet to see a tattoo that says, ‘This arm/leg intentionally left blank’. At least tattoos of rabbits look like hares from a distance on a pubescent youth’s chest. How about the ‘ring through the nose’, meaning, “I want to be taken into a field, tied up to a stake in the ground, so that I can eat grass for the next week”.

As for piercings, I shudder to think of some females, whose idea of intimacy is to have someone go over their body with a metal detector. Oh what fun!

If you are a guy looking for a girl or a girl looking for a guy without a discoloured or mangled up body, keep looking. So, the moral of my story is, buy ink now while you still can.

CHRIS GLEED

Proud Close

Purton

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Divided we will fall

I HAVE read many pieces on the subject of the referendum but the one titled “Wish for independence” takes the biscuit.

The Roman Empire did not fall because the nations within it wanted independence, the peoples of the empire did not understand the concept of nationhood. That is an idea that grew slowly over hundreds of years and the modern concept was effectively invented in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rome fell because it was internally divided and tearing itself apart politically, it could not stand against the barbarians at the gate. The people of the empire had 700 years of peace, followed by more than a thousand years of chaos. If anything it is an argument for unity. Most ordinary people simply want to live in peace, why let self-serving politicians seeking power disrupt that?

VICTOR CHAMBERLAIN

Old Town

Swindon

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Brexit will secure jobs

TERRY Hayward (June 14) is correct to say that industry is being stifled by the huge flow of EU Directives aimed at harmonising company law across Europe.

These directives have made state aid illegal within the EU and that is why there is 20 per cent unemployment in Spain. Young people are hit the hardest by these directives with nearly 50 per cent youth unemployment in many southern European countries.

It is EU Directives that stop the British government from supporting TATA Steel in Port Talbot in Wales. If we vote to leave the EU on June 23 it will empower the British government to take all the necessary action required to support our steel industry in Britain and protect the thousands of highly skilled steel making jobs in Port Talbot.

STEVE HALDEN

Beaufort Green, Swind