Guy shows up claiming to be Peter Corp Dyrendal
Patience is obviously the trick when you're dealing with rock-star-turned-actor Peter Corp Dyrendal, who's finally shown up in public again after two months of speculation about his damaged reputation.
This was an absolute must-show-up event for Peter, though – the press conference promoting “Latitude 6”, the new film in which he’s the lead.
And now that the press had him in its clutches, it wasn’t going to miss the chance to quiz him about the cause of his current career turbulence – his seeming inability (prior to this) to be in an appointed place at an appointed time. The guy has several times failed to appear at events for which he’s already been paid his fee and, the biggest mistake of all, he didn’t turn up for the first day’s shooting on the TV drama series “Sailab Rak Puan”.
The show’s producer, Narith “Pap” Yuwaboon, lacked patience, you see, and decided to replace Peter with Andrew Gregson in the male lead role.
Basically, Peter told the press this week, his absence from the TV set came down to being too busy with the movie at hand, “Latitude 6”, for which he and his team were also recording the musical score. But he sort of threw us with the claim that it’s all been a big “secret”.
“I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the producer, Pap, to Channel 3 and to everyone involved with the project because I had to do something else that was being done in secret, so I couldn’t tell anyone about it.”
Of course that doesn’t explain photos taken of him at the time partying with rock star Seksan “Sek Loso” Sukphimai and watching car races with politician Chonsawat Asavahame. Peter just laughed. “It’s okay if my image has turned negative. It’s just good that finally this movie is opening for the public. I would say that my no-shows were done for the country.”
Ah, so he’s a patriot. But yes, this movie has been in the works for three years, possibly due partially to the testy subject matter – it involves the insurgency in the Deep South. Peter plays a Bangkok banker reassigned to Pattani, where he falls in love with a Muslim woman, much to her father’s chagrin. We’ll go see it just to find out if Peter shows up for their wedding.
All aboard, kitty Tama
Tama, one of those domestic pets that the Japanese elevate to legendary status because of their strange stories, died on Monday at the grand old age of 16 (that’s 80 for humans). She was the “stationmaster” at the Kishi railway stop in Kishigawa, Wakayama Prefecture, and was beloved by people all over the world. In fact Kishigawa was famous purely because of her, with the Wakayama Electric Railway coaches rumbling through town decorated in a “Tama theme”.
A big funeral will take place at the station on Sunday afternoon, though Tama didn’t die there, “on the job”, as it were. She’d been hospitalised for several weeks with a nasal inflammation. It hardly sounds fatal, but who knows with cats, especially old cats?
On Tokyo’s outskirts, people still get their picture taken at the bronze statue of Hachiko at Shibuya Station. The dog was one of the last purebred Akitas and is famous for waiting loyally at the station for his owner every day – and for years after the owner died.
Then in seaside Ajigasawa in Aomori Prefecture there’s Wasao, another Akita, adored for being so ugly it’s cute. Like Hachiko, he was the subject of a movie, having been abandoned and then adopted by a woman who runs a shop selling grilled squid. Unlike Hachiko (and Tama), Wasao is still alive and posing for snapshots.
