IT'S 10AM AND Daniel Powter is recovering from a rather bad day. In Bangkok for last weekend's MTV Asia Awards, the singer-songwriter spent his first 24 hours in the Land of Smiles wearing a pout.
Nothing a good night's sleep and an efficient public relations department can't put right. Right? So after being warned not to mention the American Idol factor, the assembled press corps finally get to meet the 35-year-old Canadian.
Powter enters the room with a cheerful demeanour and flashes a halogen smile. He's wearing his trademark woolly hat ... and a tan that you'd expect from someone who's spent the last month in a hammock in Boracay.
'I'm feeling much better today, thank you,' he says in response to a barrage of questions about his health. Someone makes a quip about having a bad day, but it goes unnoticed.
He slides onto the couch and a bottle of Hilton bottled water is put in front of him. 'Paris is everywhere these days,' he says. 'I wonder if it tastes like perfume.'
There are a few polite chuckles, but most reporters are clearly desperate to ask him about that show and how it has propelled his best-known song back into the charts a year after it first appeared.