Zizou is clearly a superstar - he keeps hiding

Football memorabilia

is known to grow legs

Zidane wasn't in Thailand for long, but he got plenty out of the trip besides air miles. He saw everything he had on his planned itinerary, including the Temple of the Emerald Buddha and the Grand Palace, a muay thai smack-down at Lumpini stadium and lots of quality toe rest at five-star hotels.

Nicolas Cage and Hugh Grant might have told him he absolutely, positively had to see a particularly limber floor show on Patpong Road, but Zizou had the family with him and stayed a good boy.

So everyone went home happy, right?

Well, there was one annoying slip-up - a vanished souvenir that he'd dearly love to get back.

In Chiang Mai he went to meet some schoolchildren, and somehow the kids managed to contain their excitement long enough to fill a blown-up photo of him with their signatures and expressions of love and admiration.

Zidane was thrilled to receive it, but after the presentation someone cleared the stage and away it went. A search was conducted but no one could figure out where the picture ended up.

Adidas, which sponsored the charity match in which Zizou played with top Asian aces, is hoping someone will find the framed keepsake and turn it in so it can be sent on to him.

Yutthalert's movie shoots

just keep getting scarier

Film director Yutthalert Sippapak didn't used to worship at the Church of the Superstitious, but he converted while he was making "Krasue Valentine". So did a lot of the crew.

The location was definitely haunted, he decided, after getting so spooked that he couldn't even work for a while.

But he did get back to work - on another scary movie. Well, a funny scary movie.

This time it's "Goi Ther Gay" ("Ghost Station"), a comedy about a gay couple who buy an old gas station in the mountains where they can settle down to a quiet life of pumping petrol.

Yutthalert actually built a gas station from scratch because it had to be old-fashioned and it would have cost a bundle to make a new gas station fit the part. As well as reconstruction and a coat of grime there would be the small matter of hiding the mini-mart.

The station they built ended up being so realistic, complete with a toilet, that buses started pulling in for pit stops and offloading group tours. The toilet got quite busy, but unfortunately it wasn't hooked up to anything - it was just a prop.

So every time Yutthalert and his crew came back for a shoot, they'd discover that they had some scrubbing to do, not to mention a fair bit of fumigation.

Another lesson learned. Soopsip humbly suggests that they could have hung an "out of order" sign on the loo. You can't get any more realistic than that.

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 veen@nationgroup.com