Gabriele Paolini

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Gabriele Paolini is a famous Italian agit-pro, also known as the prophet of the condom. He is known in Italy as a presenzialista, which means an annoying person who unauthorizedly places himself behind famous people who are being interviewed on television, and he exhibits or waves condoms or other sort of nasty objects easily visible in the background. He has done this at singing contests, sporting events and interviews with deputies just outside of Italian parliament Montecitorio.

He entered the Guinness Book of Records after six years of these enterprises and more than 18,765 very short appearances on the small screen, waving over the shoulders of hundreds of very irritated and annoyed TV journalists.

The son of a retired general, Gabriele Paolini began his career as a "television polluter" when a friend of his died of AIDS at age 22, contracting the disease some years after unprotected sex with a prostitute.

Paolini's reaction was to invade TV news reports with a colorfull chain of condoms wrapped around his neck, sticking his face in front of the camera and waving a condom in his hand. Sometimes the condom is replaced by a photo of a politician or of the Pope, whose teachings on sexual morality are not accepted in Italy by many people.

Many journalists of Italian TV RAI cannot stand him anymore. The famous journalist and European deputy Paolo Frajese, when making an interview from Montpellier, began to kick Paolini recklessly. Many years ago, a few journalists asked in a legal injuction for the "Elimination of the Disturber" to the legal office of RAI TV in Saxa Rubra. Then Gabriele Paolini showed the cameras a list of interviewers who contacted him asking for his presence.

In March 5 1995, Paolini personally managed to make the gift of a condom (disguised as a request in a paper) to Pope John Paul the II at a church in Rome, a place that had plenty of police agents and Vatican security officers.