My last post on the rules of pizza was sufficiently disturbing that I have now lost all confidence in the protocols of public consumption. And it is clear from the comments people have made that I am not the only one currently having to review – with confidence well and truly shaken – the ethics and form of pizza-eating.
I went to Brighton with my younger brother on Friday to enjoy a day off in the sunshine by the beach. Tim has come down from Liverpool for a week or so and is staying with us in Croydon. So, we parked the car and went searching for lunch. Brighton is brilliant for little alleyways and narrow roads stuffed with small restaurants and cafes. We eventually got drawn into an Italian with a cheap offer. There was nobody else in there, so I felt reasonably confident about eating without any wider scrutiny.
We ordered the same pizza and then started to attack it. Judge for yourself (my brother is on the left).
Does that look weird to you?
The photo below is at the half-way mark when I was beginning to lose the will to carry on.
Please tell me this doesn’t negate my entire life!
Nick Baines's Blog 
March 8, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Tragic, absolutely tragic. What have you done? I don’t think you were well served by what the pizza was served on. However, good choice of pizza topping.
March 8, 2009 at 10:24 pm
Sorry, but I have to tell you that this is the weirdest way to eat pizza I’ve ever seen. Perhaps we have a different pizza culture on the other side of the pond. Here it’s one slice at a time, by hand, or with cutlery if you must, but one slice at a time.
March 8, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Do you have any idea just how embarrassing this is? Perhaps I ought to resign.
March 9, 2009 at 7:37 am
No, I think this whole incident means you can identify with those whose social (or other) practices leave them on the fringes of society, shunned by those who ‘fit the norm’ – and those are the people Jesus chose to spend time with!! So I wouldn’t worry – perhaps we are all just behaving like Pharisees as we dictate the ‘normal’ or ‘proper’ way to eat pizza!!
March 9, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Great to see the blog..will you be comming over to twitter?
March 9, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I gotta see you do this when I come over in the summer 😀
March 9, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I’d have to have mentoring in how to use twitter! I did have a quick look, but couldn’t work out how it works. So much to do – so little time…
March 10, 2009 at 1:42 pm
+Alan is the person to give you the heads up on Twitter. I followed his simple suggestions and was up and running in no time http://bishopalan.blogspot.com/2009/02/twitter-compleat-twit.html.
I gave it a try and have found it useful. http://philipstreehouse.blogspot.com/2009/02/still-twittering.html
I must confess I did tweet your pizza disaster, sorry for adding to your humiliation.
March 11, 2009 at 1:18 pm
It’s good to see a return of this important topic – maybe it should be added to the agenda for the next General Synod? To ease your mind somewhat, my wife is a “crust-leaver” and so approaches her pizza in a similar manner – you are not alone! I, myself, prefer to keep my pizza-eating experiences edgy and fresh by using a different method each time – I like to think of myself akin to a seasoned mountain climber traversing a particularly challenging peak from a variety of different death-defying approaches…though obviously with more red wine and less mortal danger. I commend this approach to you and challenge you to tackle your next pizza by eating around the slices of salami, then stacking them all up and scoffing them in one go at the end of the meal…now, that WOULD be wierd!
March 11, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Guy, I think you need help…
March 12, 2009 at 11:04 am
I only ever eat pizza at home – there always seem better things to choose when out in a restaurant. At home we share pizza – I have a third and my husband has two thirds.
Therefore I’m never faced with eating a whole pizza and so have not encountered your problem Nick of how to do so! Perhaps the answer is to share your pizza with another?
Anne.
March 18, 2009 at 7:51 am
You have to have been my age when you started as our Nick the Vic at Rothley church! I wonder whether 17 years on I will know better than you how to cut a pizza up. I just shovel it in hand to be honest.
March 18, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Juliette! How fantastic to hear from you again – especially having met your mum a few weeks ago in Rothley. And I still think of you as an 18 year old, not as a qualified anaesthetist. Still, at least your eating habits obviously haven’t changed a great deal… (Where are you? Keep in touch.)
March 31, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Just as another point of data, I went for lunch with a violinist friend today and she, too, ate her pizza from the outside in. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know you, and I declined to comment on her style of pizza consumption.
I had spaghetti. It seemed safer.
April 1, 2009 at 2:47 pm
[…] A word of advice: avoid the shellfish. I was persuaded to share a bowl of the little monsters with my wife and began to feel unwell even before we left the restaurant. Two days of serious unwellness followed – not bad for a four-day break. I am still suffering and not eating. So, the moral of the story is: DON’T EAT THE FISH – STICK WITH PIZZA! […]