You wouldn’t have met their fans, they go to a different school. In Canada.
matthew whitehouse – japan
Not everyone who works in British media is crushingly uncool, and certainly not the appropriately handsome editor of The Face, Matthew Whitehouse, who grows ever more beautiful as the years slide by. It’s crazy.
Before switching to the mag trade, Whitehouse fronted indie outfit The Heartbreaks, who reached no. 9 in the Japanese charts with the jangly single Delay, Delay – a spasm of international fame that launched him, briefly, to teen idol status in Shinjuku. When we pressed Whitehouse about this period in his life and ignored three different statements of ‘no comment’, he summarised this time as ‘a great three weeks’. Which, it would be, wouldn’t it?
a1 – indonesia
In the steady torrent of groups unleashed during Y2K-era Boyband Fever, few occupied so strange a space as A1. A British-Norwegian outfit helmed by Steps svengali Tim Byrne, A1 had limited success in the British charts but found themselves as megastars in south-east Asia.
A cursory search for their oeuvre online will near-exclusively show live gigs in the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia: countries where they amassed huge followings, dozens of hit records, and four years straight of packed-out touring gigs.
Sadly, their fame was to garner a more tragic marker in 2001, when four fans died in a crush at a gig in a Jakarta shopping mall. Following several splits, solo efforts and hiatuses, the band have regrouped several times, each time to great acclaim on the shores of the Mekong.
dashan – china
You could not dream of a better way to fall backwards into fame. In 1988, Mark Rowswell, a lanky Canadian student studying at Peking University, was asked by the Chinese state broadcaster to appear in a skit for its New Year variety show. Rowswell was given the role of a sassy peasant, Dashan (or ‘Big Mountain’) who upbraided the henpecks of his scolding wife. Rowswell’s delivery in perfect Mandarin, juxtaposed with his mammoth, pallid frame, amused the Chinese populace so much that he became, overnight, the most famous western man in Asia.
That may sound like hyperbole; it was not, and remained the case for the 30 years of Rowswell’s on-air career. He hosted educational shows, acted in dramas, gave narration for performances of Peter and the Wolf, and was even listed as one of Time magazine’s ‘Leaders for the 21st Century’ in 1999. And we can bet that you hadn’t heard of him until literally right now.
chris de burgh – iran
The Argentina-born, Ireland-raised son of a British diplomat, middle-brow wedding balladeer – and doting father to a Miss World – may seem an unlikely candidate for winding up the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ministry of Culture. And yet, the Lady In Red crooner announced in 2007 that he was to play a concert in Tehran. Not much gets past this austere organ of the Iranian state, though, as they nipped his act of easy listening subversion in the bud, on the grounds that he hadn’t actually asked permission.
Despite the cancellation of the gig, or perhaps because of it, the follically inventive songster has gained a network of devoted Persian fans. ‘Iranians light up my concerts all over the world’ he wrote on Facebook in 2020, before giving his two cents on the Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 disaster, showing him unafraid to leverage his soft power against the Iranian government. ‘The excuse from the Iranian authorities suggesting that the plane was flying over a “strategically sensitive” area is pathetic’ he wrote. ‘Pilots and air traffic controllers know full well that aircraft take off and land on designated air routes all the time, avoiding areas that could be described as dangerous’.
alex salmond – north macedonia
There are few places nicer to die than Lake Ohrid. Before he wrestled with the last ketchup bottle of his life, and after he’d been totally ostracised from Scottish politics, Alex Salmond carved out a little corner of his sclerotic heart for the country of North Macedonia (née Macedonia, FYR Macedonia, Greece).
Welcomed into the coven of the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy – a quasi thinktank spun off from the Moonies – Salmond was in the earliest stages of courting the south-eastern statelet when he met his maker last October. Appearing on the Young Leaders for International Cooperation, Cultural Understanding & Peace panel, aged 69, the handsy, corpulent Scot used his final hours to pay fulsome tribute to the nation’s independent spirit, footage which only has 24 views at the time of writing. But he made enough of an impression for the academy’s director, Mark Donfried, to give an alarmingly apposite tribute: ‘It was amazing to see how he’d touched individuals he had only known for a few days.’
bradley wright-phillips – usa
Following a journeyman career in the Championship and League One, Ian Wright’s second most-famous footballing dependent upped sticks for the bright lights and PG-13 chants of Major League Soccer in 2013. In a territory where other footballing émigrés have floundered, Brad Wright (to use his grime MC handle) flourished at New York Red Bulls, becoming veritable fox-in-the box, and cult hero in the process.
Along with stints at LAFC and Columbus Crew, he notched up 117 goals in 235 MLS games, and earned numerous honours during his time there, including the Supporters Shield (3x) and the Golden Boot (2x). But undoubtedly the greatest honour is the nickname he was given by the flare-waving ultras at the Sports Illustrated Stadium, in the prolix fashion beloved of their country: ‘BWP: The Ultimate Goal Machine.’
lady strangford – bulgaria
Yeah, we hadn’t heard of her either, until one of the editorial team took their dad to Plovdiv – Europe’s oldest city, don’t you know – staying at an apartment located on Ulica Lady Strangford. As it turns out, Emily Strangford, daughter of legendary Victorian seafarer Sir Francis Beaufort, embraced the cause of the Bolgars as they struggled against their Ottoman oppressors, donating enormous amounts of her time and fortune to the putative Bulgarian state.
She wasn’t the only one. The suppression of the 1876 April Uprising, which saw the Pasha’s forces slay 30,000 Bolgars in one month, was one of the first international causes célèbres – indeed, it was the first event to be labelled the ‘Crime of the Century’. William Ewart Gladstone vigorously took up the cause from the opposition benches, and, as such, appears all over modern-day Sofia, while still receiving an annual wreath at the foot of his Strand memorial from the Bulgarian Embassy. So I guess the lesson here is: be nice to Bulgarians, you never know what’ll come out of it.
rutherford b. hayes – paraguay
Rutherford B. Hayes is nobody’s favourite president. In the semi-regular rankings of historical presidents, Hayes – America’s 19th commander-in-chief – comes in consistently low-to-middling, sandwiched (like so many of us dream) between Chester A. Arthur and Benjamin Harrison. He was even victim to one of history’s first slander names, ‘Rutherfraud’, after a teensy bit of voter intimidation in the 1876 election.
But what if Rutherford B. Hayes mediated a dispute between you and your powerful neighbour, granting you 60% of your current landmass? Well, you might love him like the Paraguayans do. There’s an annual Hayes holiday (12 November), the city of Villa Hayes in the Presidente Hayes Department region, and a football side in Asunción called Club Presidente Hayes – nicknamed, fittingly, Los Yanquis. Weirdest of all, a young Paraguayan girl was granted one wish after she awoke from a coma, and she chose a visit to the Hayes Presidential Center in Fremont, Ohio. Sweet, right? But weird.
