Was out tonight celebrating Sheila’s birthday, at a lovely Italian restaraunt in Ladbroke Grove. Was brave and had some slightly flattened relative of spaghetti (sciatelli?) with king prawns – utterly delicious and the experience of having an entire clan of Neapolitans serve us the delicious food really put the raspberry on the panacotta (also delicious). It was a general smorgasboard of deliciousness.
Sister seemed to have a good time, which was generally pleasing. My abuse of my ‘presence’ information today on Google Talk and MSN Messenger resulted in a number of random birthday greetings for Sheila directed at me. Though oddly, none came in via this blog – are you people really paying attention? ;)
Tonight, I talked to Wu-Tang, amongst others of Sheila’s friends. Wu-tang has an awesome blog title, and a number of good anecdotes, many of which are Italian in nature.
The one thing I learned, however, was the lyrics to a particularly charming Neapolitan drinking song. Well, apparently it can be sung without drinking, but anyway, the lyrics go (please excuse spelling):
Funiculee, funicular, funiculee, funiculaaaaaaar…….
Yamba yamba yamba ya funiculee funicular
I think it’s about a funicular railway. Geor-.. I mean, Wu-Tang will no doubt drop by and correct me if I’m wrong.
I misled you. Here are the actual words to the chorus. It’s in Neapolitan dialect…
Jammo, jammo,
‘ncoppa jammo ja’…
Jammo, jammo,
‘ncoppa jammo ja’…
Funiculà – funiculá,
funiculà – funiculá…
‘Ncoppa jammo ja’,
funiculà – funiculá….
The verses are great, particularly in translation, and can be found here.
Sergio Franchi shows how it’s done here, albeit after some boring chat from someone far less interesting.
Ciao Armand!I m a neapolitan girl…:-)well…It was great to read your post and all you wrote about la cucina napoletana..yes..it’s delicious;-)))just two things: scialatielli… e panna cotta;-)
un saluto
Mc
Thanks Wu-Tang, Mc.
Mc – thanks for the help with my Italian. I have never learned Italian (and obviously not any Neapolitan dialects) – and felt the pain of it on Thursday. I also need to actually make it to mainland Italy soon… I feel inspired.
Good food, and great singing. What’s not to love?
you’re welcome Armand.well, I forgot to tell you that I m a friend of George’s and as for my English…it’s so bad…and I feel the pain of it every time I read any English document,any blog,but I just try to write….you should do the same with the Italian language;-)
Also, you really have to come to Italy:
I agree with you..Good food, greating singing…and wonderful weather!No…I m afraid it’s just a cliché…;-)
Ciao
P.S. my name is Mariacristina.nice to “meet” you