Bee's Wing
Hearts manager Robbie Neilson made a fool of himself if you ask me, in the wake of the Hearts v Celtic match at Tynecastle when he defended one of his players (Jamie Walker) who conned the referee into awarding a penalty to the home side.
No one in the ground (other than the referee) saw any contact between the two players and the ref subsequently owned up to his mistake which resulted in the Heats player receiving a two match ban for 'simulation' - a weasel word for cheating.
And despite being at the bottom of a dirty great hole Robie Neilson kept on digging deeper with the following comments:
‘Every time you watch the picture there is a crossing at high speed. That is all it takes for a player running at speed for that to happen.
‘People are saying they didn’t see much or anything. People can’t just say: “I didn’t really see much there” and then ban someone. You have to say it was either this or that - there is no in-between.
‘We are watching a slow-motion video and we are saying there might or there might not have been contact. Do we then jump to a conclusion because somebody said so after the game or someone who forms an opinion on it and says he did this or he did that?
‘You have to have firm evidence whether it is this or that. My firm evidence is that I asked the player if there was contact. He said: “Yes, there was contact” and, for me, that should be it.’
As I read these words I though of the great Richard Thomson song 'Bee's Wing' and the following two lines in particular:
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
Bee's wing
I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves
I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes
She said "Young man, oh can't you see I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind"
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine that I might crush her where she lay
She was a lost child, she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug
She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well"
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost and I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch
And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch
Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Well I wouldn't want her any other way
I watched the Hearts v Celtic match on TV yesterday and there's no doubt that the Glasgow team deserved to beat their Edinburgh rivals.
Not least because the Hearts 'goal' was the result of blatant cheating after the kind of dive that would be more at home in the Rio Olympic games.
Far from being ashamed of his behaviour the Hearts player involved, Jamie Walker, continues to protest his innocence, but it seems likely that justice will catch up with him because the referee has since owned up to the fact that he was duped.
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
Someone needs to remind Robbie Neilson that football is a contact sport and that players are not entitled to throw themselves on the ground at the slightest touch - real or imagined.
Bee's wing
I was nineteen when I came to town, they called it the Summer of Love
They were burning babies, burning flags. The hawks against the doves
I took a job in the steamie down on Cauldrum Street
And I fell in love with a laundry girl who was working next to me
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
Brown hair zig-zag around her face and a look of half-surprise
Like a fox caught in the headlights, there was animal in her eyes
She said "Young man, oh can't you see I'm not the factory kind
If you don't take me out of here I'll surely lose my mind"
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine that I might crush her where she lay
She was a lost child, she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
We busked around the market towns and picked fruit down in Kent
And we could tinker lamps and pots and knives wherever we went
And I said that we might settle down, get a few acres dug
Fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug
She said "Oh man, you foolish man, it surely sounds like hell.
You might be lord of half the world, you'll not own me as well"
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
So fine a breath of wind might blow her away
She was a lost child, oh she was running wild
She said "As long as there's no price on love, I'll stay.
And you wouldn't want me any other way"
We was camping down the Gower one time, the work was pretty good
She thought we shouldn't wait for the frost and I thought maybe we should
We was drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch
And like a fool I let her run with the rambling itch
Oh the last I heard she's sleeping rough back on the Derby beat
White Horse in her hip pocket and a wolfhound at her feet
And they say she even married once, a man named Romany Brown
But even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down
And they say her flower is faded now, hard weather and hard booze
But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse
Oh she was a rare thing, fine as a bee's wing
And I miss her more than ever words could say
If I could just taste all of her wildness now
If I could hold her in my arms today
Well I wouldn't want her any other way
Diving to Defeat (08/08/16)
I watched the Hearts v Celtic match on TV yesterday and there's no doubt that the Glasgow team deserved to beat their Edinburgh rivals.
Not least because the Hearts 'goal' was the result of blatant cheating after the kind of dive that would be more at home in the Rio Olympic games.
Far from being ashamed of his behaviour the Hearts player involved, Jamie Walker, continues to protest his innocence, but it seems likely that justice will catch up with him because the referee has since owned up to the fact that he was duped.
