Small Mindedness

My home town, Glengormley, was closed down last night for a few hours while the Loyal Orange Order's "arch" was erected across the road in readiness for the 12th of July celebrations.

A rich pageantry of fun and frivolity should be had by all except it just isn't the case.

The erecting of the arch is a signal for the thuggery to congregate on street corners, vandalise property, intimidate householders and stage pathetic mini-confrontations with their various rivals.

What this meant for me was a crowd of about 20 youths gathered outside my house to plot and scheme and taunt police officers. Of course, the plotting and scheming was done without the use of any words with more than two syllables but with an over-liberal use of four-letter words of the docker kind.

A young girl demonstrated particular linguistic skill at one point by declaring "for ****'s sake, be ****ing careful, I'm nearly ****ing pregnant". Class! She would've been aged around 14 or 15 (and could maybe have been 14 or 15 stone also) which begs a number of questions:

• Did her parents know she was wandering the streets at 11pm on a school night?
• Does she even go to school and if so, is she concentrating during her English lessons?
• What does "nearly pregnant" mean?

My hedge was damaged during the evening. I can only guess that someone was pushed by someone else through my hedge. And I have some graffiti on my wall - though not very much as I'm guessing that spelling wasn't the "artist's" strong point. Damage was minor but the stress was positively major. If ever there was a reason for moving on, the colourful tribe from Queen's Park provided it.