The increasingly irritating James Naughtie made reference on Tuesday’s Today programme to the City guru Luke Johnson as “founder of Pizza Express”. This is incorrect. Though Luke is a past owner of the company, the man he bought it from, Peter Boizot, was actually its founder, exactly half a century ago.

I have good reason to know this, since Peter was brought up in Peterborough a couple of hundred yards away from the house in which I spent my childhood. Having embarked on my career in journalism, I met him a number of times in the run-up to the two elections of 1974 in which he stood for the Liberals in Peterborough. Alas, he failed to match the success for the party of his fellow foodie Clement Freud in the neighbouring constituency of the Isle of Ely.

Long-time resident in Peterborough, Boizot has done so much for the city in the way of development and philanthropy in recent years that there are those who joke the place is actually named for him.

Luke Johnson, too, holds him in high regard. He spoke most warmly of him when we met over dinner, perhaps 20 years ago, at the Cornmarket branch of Pizza Express. Luke was in Oxford supporting his old college, Magdalen, during Eights Week.