Te Radar: The Week of memorial services, legacies and a free meal...

Without wishing any disrespect to the deceased, I have been forced to consider whether it is wrong to attend someone's memorial service ostensibly to catch up with old friends, to meet new ones, and to do so with the knowledge that a free meal awaits afterwards.

Last year, news filtered in from a small South Island town that there was a problem with folk gate-crashing funerals, sitting patiently through the service, then scoffing the complimentary kai.

I am not sure whether this affair said more about loneliness, the desire for free food, or the sorry state of entertainment in the provinces.

This saga was one of the two things troubling me in the wake of the death of David Lange.

The other concerned the outpouring of emotional tributes to him that left me rather narcissistically wondering what people might say (if anything) about me when I shuffle off.

No doubt if my demise is announced at all it will be as a short mention in the oddities news, wedged between the story of the man on the mobility scooter caught robbing pensioners' lingerie, and the story of the guy who made a Viking longboat from 15 million iceblock sticks.

Still, at least the matchstick man left a legacy. That is more than can be said for many of us.

When considering my legacy, (and frankly if I don't, who will?) I discovered little to find solace in.

I leave no great sporting legacy. Despite playing rugby for 10 years, I barely touched the ball, and only ever scored one try.

That was for Orini Primary in their game against Ohinewai Primary.

At the time I was actually a student of Ohinewai Primary, but Orini were a player short and I was nominated by my team-mates to swap sides.

My joy at finally scoring and the resulting quandary about whether it was best for my school were both rapidly negated by the disallowing of the try.

I took up the safer sport of Dungeons and Dragons, giving me several weeks of fun-filled role-playing until my character fell in a hole and was abandoned by my chums.

Happily, a lucky throw of the dice some days later meant I finally escaped my prison, whereupon I quickly caught up with the other characters, who, because they had abandoned me, I then killed.

Nor have I had moments of great intellectual success.

Like Lange, I studied law - albeit for a year. Thus I have never represented anyone in court, although I have defended many criminals at the bar (or, more accurately, in bars).

Still, with so little success in the real world, I guess I could still have a stellar career in politics.

I may go to the great man's memorial service after all, as funerals (like those other great celebrations of loss, weddings) are grand places to meet women.

With this kind of self-centred shallowness I should be in the Cabinet in no time.