Water is not just for ducks or dogs

"Drinking water" - the clue is in the title Petunia, you vacant hideous credit crunched West London trustafarian halfwit. They don’t put fountains in parks and then pipe only toxic water to it in order to poison London’s masses and our 40 million tourists. When you see this heaving great lummox of a sweaty runner deigning to drink direct and cover his heed in Hyde park water then it’s ok for twee little Tristan too. Or maybe you think it's ok for "them" but not us, the £4.50 cafe latte brigade.

What type of man is he going to turn into if he walks around thinking that water fountains are “only for dogs”? What? - you expect a Great Dane to stroll up – raise a paw, push down on the tap and fill a pint glass before retiring to the Serpentine bar with his Cocker Spaniel mates. You fucking dullard – I nearly took your precious little hybrid child into care immediately or had you carted off to North Korea where'd you'd be reunited with the rest of the toxic waste or merely pushed you, Holland park arse over surgically enhanced tit, into the round pond – now that water may not be suitable for Tristy baby – but for you and the water rats – it’s just fine!

Candy floss or vitriol - we can choose

“Da – we’ve had a great day, haven’t we” said in an unmistakeable six year old Ulster brogue. If his old man didn’t get a lump in his throat then this Belfast runner surely did as I lollloped through the park en route to the sea. Never mind that the same innocent will be swilling litres of cider, smoking embassy regal singles and experiencing his first awkward adolescent fumble a few years hence in the very same park. For now the ducks, the pond and his daddy mean the end to a great day at the “musies” on the seafront with the Wurlitzer and Dodgems, endured through a belly of candy floss and ice cream.

Such a paradox this troubled land of ours – this 'great day' just 24 hours before a festival of orange trimmed in red, white and blue with an undercurrent of bigotry and distrust of the last forty years or three hundred depending on who you speak to. Fifteen police injured, petrol bombs fired aimlessly at the boys in blue, or black as it is here, who by definition now are an equal mix of left and right, of “proddy bastards” and “fenian gits”. The Belfast child can no longer understand these divides – earlier generations keep the candle of hatred alive when it needs to be extinguished so that the beauty of our great days by the sea can be shared without fear and without embarrassment that friends and family of yours may be the ones saluting a Dutch King of a bygone era or hurling missiles intent only at harming our fellow man.

People of Ireland – rise up – stand up for this strong Island, call it northern or southern, unified or divided but the landscape I see knows no religion and harbours no grudge but embraces us all in the warm cradle of our land. A land to be proud of and a land to be shared by generations who see no animosity in colour, only a beautiful emerald isle swathed in hope.