Paolo Gas makes it into a national newspaper in the UK, namely, the Scottish Daily Express, thanks to an article marked "exclusive" by the journalist Derek Watson. He wrote that friends of Scottish Italian pop star Paolo Nutini faced a last-minute sweat on the Hampton trip after a delay in sending out their tickets for the vital Scotland – Italy match. The star's ancestors came from the Tuscan hill village of Barga, famed throughout Italy for its annual fish and chip festival. Family friend Paolo Gas, whom the singer is named after, finally couriered the tickets just a couple of days before the 20 fans were due to fly to Scotland. His much appreciated delivery is immortalised in a comic strip on the towns barganews website (article here). Mr gas will join the Nutini clan for post match celebrations.
So there we have it, known throughout the city of Barga as Paolo Gas, and not by his real name Paolo Marchetti … who ? … and now the Scottish Daily Express have immortalised him as Mr Gas.
Paolo has had a virtual presence on barganews for over a decade – some of his stuff is here and yet more is here
You mean Nutini’s career is Gas-fueled? Paolo delivers!
My sister, Silvia Waterson, wasn’t planning on going to the game last Saturday, she would have had to look for a babysitter etc. but she ended up doing the Italian announcements over the tanoid !!
Silvia works for the Italian Consulate in Glasgow and she was asked to pick up a couple of big shot Italian policemen at the airport on the Friday and do some translation work for them during their meetings with the Scottish police. Ended up they took her to the game with them and she ended up in the Hampden control room making the announcements! They asked her if she could churn out a couple of bars of Oh Sole Mio to which she replied “sorry, I only sing Madonnaâ€. Another Barga girl does good !
Good to hear Silvia doing the announcements at Hampden. Believe me, you don’t want to hear her sing, Madonna or otherwise! I’ll be over in Barga in March after a 10 year absence so I’ll be looking forward to catching up with Paolo Gas and Nina and everyone else who looked after me all those years ago when I came over on holiday. I may even bring a guitar so clear the diaries in March amici.