Bang to rights

(as in 'You're bang to rights, son.' As said by any custodian of the law)

At the risk of sounding like an East End barrow boy (if there still are such things), or that dreadful Geico gecko (how much longer must we put up with that misrepresented reptile?), Plaxico Burress is absolutely bang to rights (with emphasis on the 'bang') this morning.

His lawyer indicates that the Giants miscreant will apparently plead 'Not Guilty' to illegal weapon charges in a bid to extricate himself from the latest sickening mess of an increasingly wayward career.

But how, in the name of all that's legally understandable, can someone who boasted to the New York nightclub staff that he was carrying a gun; who then accidentally discharged it into his own leg (while holding a drink in his other hand, according to some reports); who might easily have shot an innocent bystander; who then thought only to try to cover up for his own shortcomings (of brain and act); and who only reported to police two days later under heavy threat of further action, attempt to deny the absolutely blindingly obvious?

Did he accidentally shoot himself with a stiff martini? Did his obscenely large Giants contract gouge a hole in his already-damaged right thigh? Or did one of his two team-mates injure him (and leave a blood-soaked trail through the Latin Quarter club in Manhattan) in their haste to prepare for their game with the Redskins on Sunday?

If Burress can answer 'Yes' to any of the above, he is clearly an innocent man who has been wrongly labelled as an arrogant, hedonistic, gun-toting moron by the media in the wake of Saturday's stunningly stupid incident.

If not, you are truly bang to rights, son.