It translates roughly as “one who picks from others’ plates”. “The French would call me a pique-assiette,” Rigby says as we approach the bar. He calls what he does “ligging” – which means gatecrashing with intent to snack.
Later tonight he’ll drop in at a nearby mixer for networkers, and then, if he fancies it, a talk at the University of the Arts London. Rigby’s hobby is attending events where there is free food and booze. I have a bubblegum stain on my trousers, that’s why I’ve got my long coat.” “I look like I could be someone, don’t I?” Rigby tells me later, waving a fun-size kebab. He’s here for more substantive fare – the drinks and hors d’oeuvres. What the crew doesn’t know is that Rigby isn’t here for politics or cigarettes.
With his black-rimmed glasses and spiky grey hair, Rigby might be a political flack, or a high-minded libertarian. Moving among the sharply dressed young Conservatives and red-faced publicists is a man in a pinstripe suit and charcoal grey overcoat, quickly emptying a bottle of Beck’s.Ī film crew working for Forest is gathering vox pops, and they buttonhole this man, Tom Rigby (not his real name), to ask his views on proposed cigarette-packaging regulations. I t’s a chilly Tuesday night in central London and the pro-smoking lobby group Forest is throwing a drinks reception at the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall.
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