I've recently discovered a penchant for temporary tattoos. I've always been against the real thing, on the grounds that you may feel slightly silly collecting your pension in 40 years time with the word 'Hellraiser' tattooed across your forehead. But I'm a pliable kind of guy, easily influenced by those older and less responsible than myself, and so it transpired that I found myself being nudged into the purchase of a sheet of very fetching lizard temporary tattoos whilst on holiday a couple of weeks ago. Politeness prevents me from apportioning blame for this act, but suffice it to say it was all Helen's fault.

As anyone who's ever eaten Pringles crisps will tell you however, once you've tried one, you just have to have another. So I've moved on from lizards to Chinese writing. I bought a sheet of transfers which claims to be the Chinese for all sorts of media-friendly words such as 'love', 'faith', 'friends', 'happy', and 'luck' (let's hope they've spelt that one right).

This is all slightly worrying, because aside from the fact that I'm sure I cut a slightly tragic figure walking down the street with Chinese writing on my wrist, I can't shake the feeling that in reality my tattoos probably say 'egg fried rice'.