Ask: Napoletana

Hey, Aquaman, I know that oil spill is more or less sorted out now but don't go hanging your jellyshoes over your very-hard-to-light fireplace just yet, there's another nautical disaster at hand. Someone is taking all your subjects and dumping them on my pizzas. On the Ask menu it makes out you'll get a normal amount of fish, like a couple of anchovies and a prawn or two, nothing extravagant. That's a total lie. On my plate there were half the inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean. Due to the overhead perspective of the photograph there is a slight loss in depth perception so you may not be able to tell but those toppings were about 4ft high. My pizza was basically a cheesy mass grave for a tunacide. Although say what you will about mass graves, they're certainly cost effective.*

I've been getting quite into fish recently, I think it's because I'm trying to do less supermarket shopping and go to littler shops instead, so I've started visiting the fish men on Stoke Newington High Street. I've only been in a few times but in six months I expect a conversation like this to be the norm:

Me: Hey Paul, hey Terry. (these might not be their actual names but these seem like fish guy kind of names so quit whining and go with it.) 

Fish Guys (in unison): Joe, how you doin' guvnaa?

Me: You know, same old, same old. How was your weekend away Paul? Where was it you went? Bognor Regis?

Fish Guy Paul: Yeah it was nice you know, just me n' the misses. Mind you, she didn't want to do nothin' but sit on the beach all day. Bored me 'alf to deaf it did.

Me: Women eh? (I'd do that sort of half eyebrow shrug, tutting thing, which Paul would reciprocate).

Fish Guy Paul: Yeah, tell me about it.

END SCENE

Then I'd buy some scallops and leave. I think I've got the basis for a sitcom there, I might make Paul and Terry ex-mafia goons trying to go straight and call it Sleeping with the Fishes. I could play a clueless middle-class secondary character who occasionally gets tangled up in their hair-brained, fish-based, crime heists. Bet you wish you'd thought of that one, don't you Larry David? 

4 out of 10

*I stole this joke from the Onion, I have no remorse and it won't be the last time I do this.

Ask: Calzone con Carne Piccante

You guys know what a Calzone is don't you? If you don't, first I slap my tongue stuffed lower lip/chin at you and then I tell you it is basically a folded over pizza. Yumz o'clock right?

Go to an online translation website. Try this one. Type in 'Calzone' as an Italian to English translation and see what you get.

Yeah. I know. What the hell is that all about? My guess is some hilarious Italian dude folded a pizza in half, it caught on, as a joke he called it a 'Calzone' and, like a bunch of trusting idiots, we just assumed that 'Calzone' was Italian for 'folded over pizza'.

I bet whenever Italians overhear tourists go on about how tasty that Calzone was, or how much they enjoyed putting that Calzone in their mouth, they have a little snicker and do a tiny, patriotic high-five in their heads.

It would be like if kebabs suddenly caught on in Rome and the Italians were begging to know what these suspiciously hairy parcels of almost-meat were called and we decided to be really funny and told them kebabs were called 'scrotums' and then Italians would be all "Yeah, let's go eat some scrotums, boy, I'd love a good English scrotum right now. Mmm, mmm, mmmm. Yummy, yummy scrotums" And then we could all have a laugh because it was a really elaborate, nation-wide joke we were all in on.

That said, it was perhaps one of the tastiest pranks I've been on the receiving end of, so this time Mario, I'm going to let it slide.

9 out of 10