Passione – Italian Music from Naples via Finland
Eglo Oddo, an Italian visual artist who’s based in Finland, sent me a video of a bunch of well known artists from Finnish pop culture who’ve created a cover version of the Neapolitan song Maruzzella, sung in, in part, Finnish. According to Oddo, Finns often look to Italian pop and folk music hits for musical inspiration. […]
Sant’Agata de’ Goti – New York Mayor Bill De Blasio’s Ancestral Home in Italy
Newly elected Mayor of New York, Bill de Blasio is proud of his Italian origins. De Blasio’s maternal grandfather’s home town is Sant’Agata de’ Goti in the Italian region of Campania, not too far from Naples. In actual fact, De Blasio has two ancestral homes in Italy – the other is Grassano in Basilicata. More […]
If You Are From Naples, You Stink
According to a now, suspended, Italian sports reporter, Italians from the southern Italian city of Naples have a distinctive stink. The malodorous comment made by Giampiero Amandola while he was reporting on a Juventus-Naples football match, predictably, caused a stink. Hence his suspension. Amandola’s oddball cultural observation led to a storm of protest, and not […]
Naples River of Trash
Storms have been battering Italy from north to south, east to west causing destruction and loss of life. The rain also filled a river with rubbish as this video shows. A rather unpleasant consequence of the latest rains to hit southern Italy’s regions has been this disgusting river of rubbish which flowed near Saviano, a […]
The Trashy Battle for Naples
The streets of Italian city Naples are once again playing host to festering, burning piles of refuse. The newly appointed mayor of this Italian city is Luigi De Magistris has stated that the health of Naples’ citizens is at risk. And Italy’s President Napolitano has asked the government to intervene. ***Click here to read about Lavajet*** […]
The Economist Beats Berlusconi
Many moons back in 2001, the Economist magazine displayed a picture of a pensive Berlusconi on its front cover, along with the question: ‘Is Silvio Berlusconi unfit to Lead Italy’.
Mr Berlusconi took umbrage to the undertone of this heinous insinuation, and promptly took the revered publication to court on accusations of defamation, and lost!
Berlusconi the Wizard
The Italian daily, Il Corriere della Sera, ran a lovely little cartoon on its front page yesterday.
Cheesed Off
The rubbish crisis which appears to have made Naples infamous the world over, has now been joined by a mozzarella crisis. A Buffalo Mozzarella crisis, to be more precise. As you may have seen from stories in the press the world over, this delicious cheese, one of Italy’s more prized delicacies, has become the subject […]
The Innovative Mr Alberico and his Sports Centre
Here is another story of a ‘Good Italian Thing’ that I discovered while starting a new English course last week which is tied to a part-time master in Sports Business Management. As you might expect, many of the participants are ex-sportsmen and women, and they are a fascinating bunch of people too. A Chat With […]
