Kudos to Dame Judi for seizing the day...

I don't like needles.  I don't mean the sewing variety - although to be quite honest, I'm not overly keen on those either. 

I remember in sewing classes in primary school one of the boys thinking it would be great fun to put a row of stitches with embroidery thread through his thumb.  He was alone in thinking this was funny, as the teacher and the rest of us in the class didn't agree.

I can't watch when the phlebotomist is taking a sample for a blood test.  How very interesting the pictures on the wall become at this point for me, as I gaze at the artwork much as Brian Sewell would have done at a gallery, but slightly less critically I imagine.

I therefore don't have any body art as I would have to undergo a general anaesthetic - yet more needles! - in order to have it done.

Hats off then to Dame Judi Dench for having her first tattoo created for her 81st birthday.  The words 'CARPE DIEM' are now indelibly inked on her right wrist for all the world to see, in block capital letters no less.

For those who, like me, went to the local comp and didn't study Classics - or if you haven't seen the film Dead Poets' Society - these words translate from Latin as 'seize the day', and this is apparently her motto.

It's definitely nothing to do with the fish of a similar name - for those wondering otherwise, ask yourselves why would Dame Judi have something about koi carp tattooed on her wrist?  Although the company of A Winter's Tale, which she was filming at the time she went under the needle, used to joke with her that it meant 'fish of the day'.

I did read that she previously considered some kind of symbol, but was unsure what it depicted despite assurances that it wasn't rude - she quite rightly erred on the side of caution and gave it a miss.  That would have been an interesting assignment for E4's Tattoo Fixers though!