Pompeii-back.

What was cool about this pizza was that when I asked for no jalepenos, instead of being spineless, subservient wimps and complying to my outrageous demands, Vesuvio went ahead and, as you can see in the photo above, totally ignored me. I like that. That shows a real strength and belief in your vision. The unwillingness to compromise or waver in your certainty that you know what's best for your customer. That level of artistic integrity is rare, and the fact that it exists in a little pizza restaurant just off Clapton roundabout is a testament to the spirit and resilience of the human desire to create. It brings to mind inspirational figures like Ai Weiwei and Salman Rushdie, standing fast in the face of public opinion, refusing to budge no matter what. People and government are telling them what to do and they simply ignore them because they have a higher calling. Congratulations Vesuvio Pizza Takeaway, your legacy and example of fearless defiance will live on in the countless people who's requests you totally ignore, regardless of how much it disrupts their poop cycle.

This was pretty good even though I had to pick off all the jalepenos myself. I stupidly did this with my fingers and before I took out my contact lenses. If you've ever man handled chili and then given your eyeball a big old poke you'll know how fun it is. My eyes frazzled up like bacon bits in a deep-fat fryer and I am now completely blind. I've just been randomly bashing away at the keyboard for the last ten minutes like an ADHD five year old at a piano. If what I've written so far actually makes any sense then it's a miracle and I am that one monkey  with a typewriter, out of an infinite number, that managed to hammer out Shakespeare. My mum's watching and crying because of what's happened to her family. It's pretty sad.

On the plus side the hospital gave me these sick new sunglasses. In my head I look like James Dean.

6 out of 10

The Hotfella: a pizza, not a gay dating site.

The Hotfella is Goodfella's new spicy pizza. It's like their regular frozen deep-pan only a bit spicier. I can't tell you much more than that because I was pretty drunk when I cooked it. Whenever I have a naughty little pre-bed, hangover-thwarting, booze pizza I wake up convinced that I left the oven on and burned my kitchen down, or worse, wasted loads of our gas credit. So far, to the best of my knowledge, I haven't caused any drunk pizza related fatalities, but that said, I can be quite unobservant and it's possible I'm directly responsible for numerous casualties in a Sgt. Frank Drebin from the Naked Gun kind of way. Happily whistling away, totally oblivious to the motorway pile up I just caused by throwing away that banana skin. Or something like that. Ignorance is bliss so it's probably best if I don't ask too many questions about my frequent memory blanks between 11pm and 4am, the bloody kitchen knives under my bed and the growing pile of prostitue corpses that I keep finding in my cupboard. I'll just do what Leslie Nielsen (R.I.P.) would; a wide-eyed grimace, a gulp and a nervous shuffle away from the scene of the crime. Because that will work. If slapstick comedy has taught us anything it's that old men know gymnastics, people being shot and falling off buildings is hilarious so long as they're relatively insignificant characters and that OJ Simpson was too funny to have done it.

I'm usually a bit of a wimp about really spicy food. Partly because it can give me a dicky belly, but also because once my brother decided he was a big dog and ordered a Vindaloo at an Indian restaurant. He got a third of the way through and had to be given two massive jugs of water, cucumber dipped in yoghurt and a cold towel on his forehead to stop him passing out. I'm way too self-conscious to handle that much attention. Anyway this pizza wasn't that spicy at all, and if there was any justice in the world then Will.I.Am's career would have gotten no further than 'Canned Goods Aisle Manager', and this pizza would be called something more accurate. Like the 'Warmfella', which in my opinion, sounds just as homoerotic, albeit in a slightly fuzzier, long-term commitment, kind of way.

6 out of 10

Halo. Is it me you're looking for?

Well no-scope me out of a Warthog and call me the Reclaimer, if Pizza Hut haven't thought of yet another way to make me hate them, myself, the world, you probably, and just about everything ever. You don't have to be Cortana to know that the thing stuffed crusts are definitely not lacking is more cheese. So it's slightly perplexing as to why 'the Hut' have decided to celebrate the release of Halo 4 by sprinkling – although it's more like 'coating' really, let's call a horse a horse – their stuffed crust with Red Leicester. I guess it's because it's in the shape of a halo, and the video game's called Halo, and those two words are the same and so it all makes sense and could be totally justified in a war crimes tribunal. Which, after experiencing what can only be described as digestive genocide, seems a likely direction for events to unfold in. I don't know if you've ever played Halo. If you're not sure either, a good way of checking is to quickly assess if you have any or all of the following: 

1. A healthy, non-racist-expletive filled, social life.

2. A girl/boyfriend who doesn't thoroughly resent you. 

3. Regular interactions with sunlight.

If these sound familiar, then chances are you haven't played it. If however, you're like me and have decided a worthwhile way to spend the dwindling remnants of youth is to perfect your four-shot with the Battle Rifle, then add a brother up and we'll go smoke some suckers. My Xbox Live gamertag is 'Ninjoe'. It's a combination of the the word 'ninja' and 'Joe'. I thought of it about ten years ago and it is, by far, my greatest achievement and contribution to the world to date.

Anyway, this pizza is gross and unnecessary and I hate it and I hate Pizza Hut. Also, the other night, at the bar I work in, I got talking to a guy who said he does the advertising for Pizza Hut and apparently their CEO is some sadistic, psycho-devil woman who everyone in the industry (the pizza advertising industry presumably *vom*) totally hates. Kind of like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, except with pizza instead of fashion magazines. So there's that too.

0 out of 10

Reggae Reggae Jerk Chicken Stonebaked Pizza

The pizza so nice, they technically named it once but repeated a word. Levi Roots, the man behind Reggae Reggae sauce, not a new denim heritage collection, has decided that just selling sauce in bottles is boring and that he needs to step in and give people ready made examples of what they could be putting the sauce on. All that time spent in the Dragon's Den - presumably fighting off dwarves and sleeping on huge piles of gold or whatever, I dunno, I don't watch the show. LOL JK I do. Loads. I live for that shit - has really rubbed off on him and turned him from a mildly eccentric Jamaican man who sings to grumpy rich white men for money into a shrewd capitalist, devoted to expanding his jerk sauce empire. I read somewhere (possibly in a daily publication I get called My Imagination) that a couple of years ago, Reggae Reggae sauce outsold Heinz Ketchup. I find that hard to believe because I get through, on average, four bottles of tomato sauce a day. And I don't buy any of that Daddie's shit. But then I am just one man and can only do so much. For now at least... *glares at nervous group of bioengineers locked in my basement. They yelp and scamper back to work on their cloning machine*.

Jerk chicken is great, and I feel far less of what psychotherapist's don't call, but should, 'Carnivore's guilt', when eating it. It's reassuring to know that I'm eating a very unpopular chicken, that chances are, the chicken community is grateful this chicken is dead. I like to think that jerk chickens would bully the other chickens, perhaps make jokes about their cowardice, throw their unborn children at their coops, or dress up as Colonel Sanders for chicken Halloween. Stuff like that. And now they've got their comeuppance by being eaten by someone like me. Surely the ultimate, final humiliation.

6 out of 10

Pizzeria da Mario: Pizza Mario

The other week I went up to Oxford to visit my two little brothers. They're both at University there and when I tell people that they always ask if I mean Oxford Brookes. I don't, I mean actual Oxford-Oxford, as in the closest-any-of-us-stupid-muggles-will-get-to-Hogwarts-Oxford, and whoever I'm telling is a little surprised by this. They may deny it but I can read their eyebrows like two, hairy little books. I don't blame them for their scepticism, because it seems like a bit of a stretch that the same sperm - egg DNA combo can produce such wildly different levels of academic success; but such is the miracle of genetics, and it serves as a reminder that God is both very real and has a sick, sadistic sense of humour. Also don't we share something like 96% of DNA with potatoes or whatever? I can kind of believe this though because there are days when I sit around for so long I get this weird urge to peel off all my skin, chop myself up into strips and hug fried fish.

Anyway, this little place is on Cowley Road which is about as rough as central Oxford gets. I feel pretty confident I could mince up and down the Cowley Road at 2am on a Saturday night in acid-washed denim hot pants, several sealed and boxed iPhone 5s hanging round my neck on easy-to-snap chains, telling track-suited, overly gelled teenage boys I think they're sexy and slapping their cans of Skol out of their hands and not get 'crimed against' once, but then maybe the savage, everyday-is-a-battle-for-survival lifestyle I lead on the Mad Max 2-esque streets of Stoke Newington has given me an overly rosy view of the Cotswolds.

This was a good pizza even and, although it had artichokes on, we didn't have any problems. (It also usually comes with olives, but obviously I demanded they take those shrivelled little hell nuggets off because I had a whole colostomy bag of AIDS-blood soaked razor blades I'd sooner eat before I'd let  Lucifer's testicles get anywhere near my gorgeous, gorgeous face).

8 out of 10

Who 'Demands' Pizza Hut's Garlic Butter Stuffed Crust?

Woah, woah, and another woah Pizza Hut. Hold that drove of horses you've let run rampant through the quiet town of Plausibilityville (the potentially incredible sequel to Pleasantville, where a couple of teenagers are sucked into a TV town where everything happens under very likely and unsurprising circumstances. Also starring William H. Macy). Pizza Hut do you really expect me and every other pizza-centric, linguistically pedantic chump with too much free time who walks past this sign to just nod and accept whatever you say like a drunk monkey asking for more wine gums? Popular demand? What happened, did someone send you a petition?

"Dear Pizza Hut,

Below you'll find 50,000 signatures of concerned individuals who feel your decision to cease the option of adding a garlic butter stuffed crust to your pizzas (large only) both insulting, irresponsible and possibly a little homophobic. Please rectify this blatant oversight by returning the garlic butter stuffed crust to it's rightful place as a staple on the Pizza Hut takeaway menu. Your understanding on this matter is appreciated and we just hope you take steps to make amends for the hurt your decisions have caused.

We sincerely hope you do the right thing.

Yours,

Loads and loads of people apparently."

Bah. If Pizza Hut brought out a limited edition 'Elixir of Everlasting Life' stuffed crust I'd be surprised if I could muster up the energy to do anything about it when the offer expired. But then sometimes I worry I'm a kind of pioneer, testing the boundaries of the human capacity for lethargy so don't go by my example by any means. 

Grandad's Pizza in Byrne's Pub (1254 West 3rd Avenue, Columbus, OH) Grandview

Hype: I've seen coupons here and there but there wasn't really any.  We knew they served pizza in a bar, which is tough to mess up, so it sounded like a surefire way to eat a good pie and and have some refreshments before the BIG GAME!!!

Scene: Gee, it's a good thing we weren't there at night.  It looks to be an Irish Rock bar.  Beyond the possibility of hearing Irish music this is a nice place.  Wide selection at the bar, ample seating with an excellent patio. They serve good pizza too.  Oh yeah, affordable Great Lakes pitchers and TV screens helped us root for an undefeated Northwestern Football Squad.

The Pie:
Crust- thin to win.  stood up to plenty of sauce while maintaing it's COLUMBUS EDGE.  Take a look at that.
Sauce- not too flavorful, but that was ok.  It was kinda sweet with hints of tomatoieness.
Cheese- mild, evenly applied.
Peps- very nicely cupped, with some greasiness.  Very spicy.  Very delightful.

Overall: Nice place.  This pizza was not mind-blowing but it is an excellent Columbus-style pizza.  It fits in perfectly as a thin, spicy pepped, Grandview/Arlington Style pie.  The fact that you can eat it in Byrnes makes it a no brainer.  If I lived in Grandview (and I would never consider it) I would do Grandads all the time. 4--5 pies!!!!!!!!!!