Joel Golby

There are two types of people in this city: people who get their Brick Lane bagel from the yellow sign place (Beigel Shop, if you want to be like that about it) and those who get them from the white sign place (Beigel Bake, if you must). I have had all of my most passionate pub arguments about this. As soon as you are taken to one bagel shop, you imprint on it like a baby duck, and you are never able to go to the other bagel place for as long as you live in this city. In my first weekend in London, my sister moved quickly to guide me on the path of the light – ‘You go there,’ she whispered, pointing at the neon-white sign of Beigel Bake, ‘and never there,’ she said, pointing at the lurid yellow of Beigel Shop – and I have never faltered from it since. It is entirely possible that Beigel Shop is very nice. I’ll just never know. This was an important ritual for me, because not only did it baptise me in the glory of mustard, but it gave me something to do for my first 70-odd weekends in the city. When I first moved to London I was both exceptionally poor and relatively lonely, having, as I did, a badly paid job where I only knew the people I worked with. This means I spent most Saturdays doing roughly the same thing: getting a crawling, never-ending bus from Muswell Hill down to Moorgate, walking along to Shoreditch, through the markets and the graffiti tours and the high-energy art students all wearing what I can only describe as ‘brave hats’ and then cashlessly mooching, looki