This boastful gossip gets caught up in a legal vice

protagonists. ‘‘You should settle,’’ I advised Robert. ‘‘Never,’’ he exclaimed, spilling his roll-your-own tobacco over the already coffee-stained shirt front; ‘‘I want a body!’’

(He doesn’t, I should hasten to add. Not literally.)

Hendo, as Mr Henderson likes people to affectionately call him, shares with me an obscure and reviled belief in individual liberty and hostility towards all forms of government.

We became acquaintances. Not friends, as Robert had a prior claim on this status and you cannot be friends with both parties to a feud. Even being an acquaintance can be tricky, for reasons that will shortly become clear.

Mr Henderson was recently released from one of the longest bankruptcies in New Zealand history and has imposed on him a series of post-bankruptcy restrictions. Hendo, as befits his libertarian world view, bristles at any state-imposed restrictions. He, or more precisely his wife’s lawyer, asked me to intercede with Robert on his behalf, which I unsuccessfully did.

Now Robert believed that such a request breached these restrictions and, to my intense irritation, supplied my text messages to the court as proof of these breaches.

Hendo, taking umbrage, responded by making an application to have Robert fired as a liquidator. He supplied to the court a transcript of a covertly recorded conversation where I relayed that not only did Robert tell me the settlement amount, I also confided that settlement was unlikely, as ‘‘Robert wanted a body’’.

I was summoned to the High Court at Christchurch to confirm or deny this nonsense. Hendo’s lawyer, a snappily dressed chap by the name of Jai Moss, pressed me on my claim that Robert had told me the settlement amount. ‘‘He didn’t, not really,’’ I confessed.

So, how did I reconcile the difference between what I said on the phone and my evidence before the court?

Pinned by own words there was nowhere to go. ‘‘I’m prone to boastfulness,’’ was my response. ‘‘You like to gossip?’’ the judge inquired, most helpfully. ‘‘I do,’’ I confirmed.

The only thing worse than being confirmed as a boastful gossip is filing a dull column. And that, dear reader, I will never do.