There are many reasons why Friday is my favourite day of the week.

First and foremost is that sense of anticipation when you clock off from work and know you have the whole weekend ahead of you.  However tired I am from five days’ work, simply turning off my computer reinvigorates me.  

That first pint, or glass of wine, or Negroni instantly sees stress falling away.

I am sorry to bring all this up on a Wednesday, but hey, at least we are halfway there.

In recent weeks there has been another wonderful innovation which has put the icing on the Friday cake.

Actually, that should be the mozzarella on the Friday pie, because a few months ago, wonderful aromas started wafting down my road from the Beehive pub on the corner.

Further investigation revealed that these delicious smells were emanating from a proper Italian pizza van which has taken up residence each week outside the pub.  I mean, Friday night, a pint or two and pizza; does it get any better than that?

It appears that my love for pizza is shared by the great British public, if a new survey is to be believed.

Commissioned to coincide with National Pizza Month (which is October, in case you were wondering), it shows that the average Brit will munch through 5,208 slices of pizza during their adult life.

When you drill down into those figures, that isn’t actually that impressive.

Let’s assume the average adult life stretches to 60 years, and that a ‘slice’ of pizza is a sixth of a whole pizza: that means that 5,208 slices figure works out at only just more than one pizza a month.  

Given that the same research suggests that an eighth of the population wolfs down three whole pizzas a week, then that means there are a lot of strange people out there who don’t seem to be eating it at all.

While flatbreads served with toppings have been around since ancient Egyptian times, it was in Naples in the 17th century when it first evolved into the dish we know today, when the tomato reached the city.

Perhaps the most famous development in pizzas came in 1889, when a Neapolitan pizza-maker by the name of Raffaele Esposito created a pizza to honour the queen consort of Italy, Margherita of Savoy.

Simply garnished with tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, supposedly to represent the colours of the Italian flag, the margherita was born.

If you have ever experienced a real Margherita in Naples, you will know that this is the ultimate pizza; you simply don’t need the elaborate toppings which are ubiquitous today.

In fact, it is high time that a campaign was launched to preserve proper pizzas.  We should call it CARP: the Campaign for Real Pizza.  

This should be the start of the fightback against the frequent abominations which are all too common in our supermarkets and even in our pizza restaurants.

The first thing to say is that pizzas should have a thin crust.  This is a food which should cook in just 60 seconds, and the cake-like wedges of dough with which manufacturers bulk up the weight of their products simply don’t work.  

That said, a true Neapolitan pizza will have an elevated ‘rim’ of between 1cm and 2cm.

Secondly, pizzas need to be cooked at very high temperature, ideally in a wood-fired oven – it really does make a difference.  The popularity of the Ooni pizza oven, which reaches temperatures of 450°C, twice that of a domestic oven, is testament to how much better a pizza tastes when it is blasted at fiery temperatures.

Thirdly, when it comes to toppings, less is more.   There is a reason that the three-ingredient Margherita is the world’s most popular.  Pizza-makers who load them up with seven or eight toppings are trying to hide the inadequacies of their pizza base, or the poor quality of their ingredients.

Fourthly: no to stuffed crust pizza.  A sop to those with miniscule attention spans, this is simply not pizza.

Finally, and I will brook no argument on this, pineapple has no place on a pizza.  

The ‘Hawaiian’ pizza was in fact created by a Greek man in a restaurant in Canada: it has nothing to do with either Italy or Hawaii.  And ita is not a pizza.

It is 14 years since the EU awarded the Neapolitan pizza protected status.

 Sadly, this has not stopped big multinational chains continuing to make doughy imitations and calling them ‘Neapolitan’.

But if you ever find yourself at a pizzeria which is displaying the round blue and yellow logo which shows they make the real deal, then I urge you to go in and order one.  

And then you will understand what real pizza is all about.