beard of evil.

Just awoke to the news that José Mojica Marins AKA  Coffin Joe has died.

Which has kinda put the dampers on Mrs Unwell's birthday seeing as he's her real dad.

No seriously.

You should check her nails.

So anyway in tribute - and because loads of folk (well one) emailed to find out what happened to him post À Meia-Noite Levarei Sua Alma I thought it was time to review the fantastically monikered:

Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver (AKA This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, Tonight I Will Make Your Corpse Turn Red, Tonight I Will Paint in Flesh Colour. 1967).
Dir: Jose Mojica-Marins.
Cast: Jose Mojica-Marins, Tina Wohlers, Nadia Freitas, Antonio Fracari, Jose Lobo, Esmeralda Ruchel, Paula Ramos and Tania Mendonça.

Mad as a bag of spanners undertaker Zé Do Caixão (AKA the late great but still warm seeing as he only died yesterday Coffin Joe) having pissed off everyone is his home town with his constant raping, killings and eating meat on holy days has run away to the local cemetery scarily pursued by ghosts (are you getting all this?) and, after hiding in the crypt of his murdered (by Zé obviously) best friend ends up scared shitless by the spirits of his victims.

The pursuing townsfolk arrive to find him lying in a pool of his own urine, all googly eyed and dribbling like a wean.

But, incredibly, still alive.

But still having to answer for all those killings (and rapes and mutilations) Zé is placed under arrest to await his trial.

Luckily for him (but of no surprise to anyone who's seen the first movie), the authorities have no hard evidence and have to let Zé go free.

Heading back to his (newly acquired) castle with his (recently hired) hunchback assistant Bruno Marrs (Lobo, not the DC Comics character) our undertaker pal quickly resumes his mission to find the perfect woman to give him a child.

But being the wacky outgoing guy that we all know and love, Zé forgoes the normal dating channels (such as the internet, Guardian Soulmates and the like) and decides that it'd be easier to just send Bruno out to kidnap the five best looking ladies in town.

Well, the four best looking and their lopsided mouthed pal.

OK if I'm honest he kidnaps the five actresses least likely to complain about having to show their nipples whilst wearing huge black pants.

"Fuck me it's Fred Titmus!"

Always the gentleman, Zé, taking a leaf from late but not lamented TeeVee show Big Brother waits till they've all calmed down and settled in before explaining his plans - which involves torturing them with big hairy spiders, threatening to let Bruno shag them and finally dropping the ladies into a pit filled with large, possibly phallic snakes.

I say possibly because I'm never too sure about that kind of thing, which is why I stick to films with killings in them.

At the end of all this general badness only one woman is left standing, a wealthy, blonde and scarily buxom widow named Marcia (Freitas) who is more than happy to oblige our hero in his quest for an heir.

Which begs the question why he didn't just ask the ladies politely to begin with?

"We've got some great photo's of you without the
hump showing but the bad news
is that we can't get the album shut".

Everything is going swimmingly for Zé and his new squeeze until one day, when our hatted hero is out picking flowers and stuff he bumps into the dark eyed and bullet breasted Laura (Wolhers, star of the underrated Amantes, Amanhã Se Houver Sol) who not only happens to be the daughter of a prominent town dignitary but is as completely fruit loops as Zé is.

Love is indeed in the air.

And from the look of the fog surrounding Zé's home so are a number of eggy farts.

Not too surprisingly her dad and family are furious (tho' not as furious as that fast film with Vin Diesel) so decide to take matters into their own hands hiring some bad men to 'duff Zé up'.

Don't worry tho' because as we all know by this point Zé's nothing if hard as nails and ends up killing them instead.

"Don't forget Zé, Graham and his
team are waiting backstage to help
you with your anger issues should the DNA results
reveal that the beard isn't yours!"

It's only a matter of time before Laura falls pregnant giving Zé an excuse to go into town, get pissed and hand out exploding cigars to everyone but whilst enjoying his new found status as daddy but whilst out enjoying himself he inadvertently discovers that one of the women he's offed earlier was pregnant and not just portly as he'd mistakenly believed.

The thought of killing a child sends Zé into a fit of guilt and rage that not even a tearful wank and a Pot Noodle can cure culminating in dreams of being dragged to Hell by a big, naked black man to witness the horrors that befall cursed souls.

Oh, and a load of buff, thong wearing muscle men with their arses painted red.

 

Inside Michael Gove's mind.

It's at this point that things start to go from bad to very bad for our coffin carrying chum as Laura loses the baby, causing Zé's somewhat tenuous grip on reality to slip even more whilst the local law enforcement folk start to put two and two together (finally) with regards to all the killings and general badness that's been occurring in the local area since Zé moved in.

There's only one course of action left to the top hatted terror and that's to scarper into the swamp....

But has Zé's luck finally run out?

"Tonight I will make your corpse turn red, but
not before I've turned your
mooth a shitey brown colour!"

The second part of Jose Mojica Marins 'Coffin Joe' trilogy offers more of the same mix of violence, philosophy, nudity and murder but on a much more polished scale.

Like a Marvel Comics re-imagining of the character of Joe, the movie adds a hunchback butler and spooky castle to the mix giving our anti-hero an almost Doctor Doom feel and the plot, whilst an almost carbon copy of the first movie, seems bigger and brasher expanding to a point where the character of Joe moves from being 'just' an evil bogeyman figure to become the whole reason for the films existence.

And the horror genre is all the better for it.

Everything about Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver is so unique and different from anything else being produced at the time, from the juxtaposition of the hand scrawled animated credits flashed over a frantic display of images against the classic gothic look of Coffin Joe himself, it becomes obvious that you're experiencing a film created by a true visionary and a master of storytelling.

And if any director deserved recognition outside his chosen genre then it's Jose Mojica-Marins, that brilliant yet utterly bonkers Brazilian eccentric, loved and hated in equal measures in his homeland where he's viewed as either a god or an living breathing incarnation of his on-screen persona.

The church to this day still vigorously attack his anti-religion stance and his ongoing theme of ethical beliefs and religious principles, and at the centre of this we have Coffin Joe and his quest to cement his ideal of man's place in the hierarchy of heaven and hell, violently confronting and challenging blind conformity and ultimately to prove man's superiority over God himself.

Pants.

Tho' Marins would quite possibly say I was talking utter bollocks and that he just makes the wee horror films to scare the weans shitless.

If this is the case then fair play to him, but I really do believe that we need directors like Marins working in our beloved genre.

And that the world in general deserves a character such as Coffin Joe, today more than ever.

God bless you sir, you will be missed.

13 March 1936 -
19 February 2020

parsons knows....

RiP national treasure Nicholas Parsons - from trailblazing Tex Tucker to taking on terrifyingly toothsome Who monsters via Sale of The Century and Just A Minute.

boom boom.

RiP Mr Derek.

cat baloo.

The Pyramid (2014).
Dir: Gregory Levasseur.
Cast:  Ashley Hinshaw, Denis O'Hare, James Buckley, Christa Nicola, Amir K, Faycal Attougui and Philip Shelley.

“This doesn’t look like the Egyptian stuff you find at the British Museum!”

It's August 2013 and those pesky, democracy craving Egyptians are rowdily  rioting in Cairo’s Ramses Square, an historic turning point in Middle Eastern politics.

But fuck that cos there are far more important things afoot out in the desert where the American father/daughter archaeology team of Miles (American Horror Story stalwart O’Hare channelling Harry Dean Stanton) and Nora Holden (council estate Blake Lively, Hinshaw) have just uncovered a new (in the sense of it being hidden, it's not like they hired Bob The Builder to construct it for them - tho' that would make a great movie) pyramid.

Buried beneath the harsh desert sands for over five thousand years (possibly), the team are most excited by the fact that it only has three sides.

Which probably cheered the CGI team up no end too.

Unfortunately there's a chance that they'll never get to explore it seeing as the US government, always wary of being involved in other countries political problems when it doesn't concern them, want the pair out of Egypt as soon as possible save Ben Affleck has to be sent in to rescue them.

Plus it's full of a scary green gas that makes people vomit milk.

Which is nice.

"...And here we see one of Madonna's original bra's!"

Luckily the team are given 24 hours to complete their investigations by their military liaison, the permanently angry Corporal Terry Shadid (Attougui) so Nora persuades her 'love' interest and the teams techie Zahir (the Kafka-esquely named K) to send his borrowed NASA robot into the pyramid for a wee nosey around.

Which would be a great excuse for some spooky found footage style thrills if it weren't so badly handled.

At this point I was a wee bit worried that the entire film would be made up of footage from the robot intercut with reaction shots of the human cast but alas this fairly unique (if horrifying) prospect is soon dashed when the machine is destroyed by some slight - and unconvincing - CGI, leaving Nora, Miles and Zahir, alongside the terrifyingly eyebrowed news-anchor Sunni (Home And Away's Nicola) and her cheeky-chappie British cameraman Fitzie (The Inbetweeners Buckley) no choice that to pack up shop and head back to the relative safety of America.

The end.

Only joking of course, obviously they throw caution (and logic) to the wind and head forth into the pyramid.

Not even industrial gas masks can hide the stench of this script.

Aware of the films meagre running time the group quickly become lost, then after a section of dodgy crazy paving collapses beneath them, trapped in a big hole.

Luckily only token foreign bloke Zahir is injured, pinned to the ground by a huge lump of polystyrene.

Luckier still is the fact that Sunni is not just a top TV type but is, in fact also a trained climber which means that she can climb out of the hole and go for help.

Which as far as logical plans go is pretty good for this movie and it just might of worked had it not been for the pesky cat (a highly trained Egyptian attack cat at that) that destroyed the robot lying in wait to pop out and surprise her, leading to this priceless dialogue exchange:

“There's something up there and it scratched my face! ”

Admit it, it doesn't really chill you to the bone or fill you with dread does it?

After, oooh, minutes of debating they decide to leave Zahir behind and take their chances in a nearby tunnel, only to turn back when they hear the poor sod screaming for help.

They probably shouldn't have bothered seeing as all that's left of the bloke is a jammy smear and a toenail.

There's no time to mourn their fallen comrade tho' as the angry tones of Corporal Shadid are soon echoing around the room which means there must be a way out.

Either that or the director fancies killing off another foreigner before starting on the English speaking cast.

Milk in mah mooth!

Hurrying thru' a narrow tunnel with an army of killer cats in hot pursuit our merry band soon find Shadid, who drags them to the relative safety of yet another chamber before being ignominiously dragged into the tunnel by a thing (or things) unseen/not yet rendered by the films animators.

From this point on it's sand traps and spiked pits ahoy as no Mummy movie cliche is left unburied as our surviving heroes race towards a thrilling (well I say thrilling) climax as the true nature of the pyramid is unveiled.

In part thanks to the mummified remains of a notebook clutching Freemason they just happen to find in a burial chamber.

Obviously he'd been caught painting the sand stone red, white and blue or trying to organise a march thru' the tunnels when he was found by the non- Protestant occupant.

And you'd never guess who that is.

Why it's none other than Jeff Anubis, famed protector of the dead and god of funerals.

It's like Through The Keyhole on smack.

Anyway back to the plot (what there is of it) where it seems that, oh, years ago (2000–1700 BC at least) Jeff's dad/creator Osiris, on account of not suffering from dog breath beat poor Anubis in the annual most important god of the dead competition and leaving him in second place.

Although this didn't come without it's perks and a fancy job title ("Guardian of the Scales"), Anubis soon got bored tearing out folks hearts to see if they could get into heaven and decided to do other stuff instead.

The film/history books don't mention what so I like to imagine him surfing or opening a chip shop, go on, see what funny situations you can imagine Anubis in.

There's a prize for the best.

Anyway the Egyptians, being a leather obsessed and frankly untrustworthy lot decided to build a huge pyramid to imprison him in and leave an army of cats inside to stop him escaping.

As you do.

Now if only they'd thought to write this above the entrance none of this would have happened.

The ancient god Anubis, sniffing someones arse yesterday.

Plus Anubis himself wouldn't have to suffer the indignity of being portrayed as a badly rendered CGI stick man with a dodgy Chuckle Hounds style dogs head clad only in a hula skirt.

Don't you know about Anubis? He'll take you up a hill, beat you up and then he'll bum you! And if he doesn't kill you, you kill yourself because of the shame of you getting a boner whilst you was being bummed!

So will the rapidly dwindling team manage to escape from the clutch of Anubis?

Can you actually clutch if you have paws?

Does Anubis even have paws?

If the cats are frightened of fire, why not just remove their jackets and make torches?

Why trap Anubis in a Labyrinth when they could have just sealed him in and filled the whole structure with sand and suffocate him?

And most importantly why does every film of this ilk have a shitey mock-rock song over the end credits? 

Pity poor Gregory Levasseur, the writer behind the genuinely brilliant Maniac remake (as well as the not too shoddy Hills Have Eyes reboot and the sexy shocker High Tension), with a pedigree like that behind him you'd reckon he'd have been a wee bit more choosey when it came to picking the script  for his directorial debut.

Writers Nick Simon and Daniel Meersand ransack the tombs of both the Egyptian undead and found footage genres with little knowledge or understanding of either in the vain hope that some of it will stick out in a memorable way.

Unfortunately saddled with dialogue along the lines of “We’re just like food in a bowl right now,” the only place it sticks is in the viewers throat, or in the case of the almost schizophrenic 'is it or isn't it?' found footage style, the audience is left to play the who's filming who? game.

Which if I'm honest does add an element of enjoyment from the film that's sadly missing from the (frankly ludicrously nonsensical) plot.

Charlie says practical effects are best.

What scares the movie does attempt are more like old friends than genuine frights being taken as they are from (better) genre movies going back to the 50's and earlier and the sub par CG makes the already vaguely amusing idea of an army of highly trained, god fighting killer cats unintentionally hilarious.

Tho' not as side-splitting as the reveal of Anubis in all his floating about not quite in shot, plasticine faced glory.

Honestly I've seen better CG in an average episode of Numberjacks.

Why the just didn't buy a kiddies dog mask instead I’ll never know but saying that, there is an oh so clever train of thought that says that monster looking this shite are, in fact really clever as we can't and shouldn't judge people and things on their outward appearance.

I mean who's to say that the Egyptian god of the dead wouldn't choose to appear to be made out of kiddies modelling clay and hastily painted in shit?

A better man than me that's for sure.

Nothing special but a fairly harmless way to pass 90 minutes.

Especially this far into 31 days of horror.

But saying that so is shagging your gran and I know which I'd find more satisfying.

to infinity and beyond.

Godspeed Captain Dan Holland.

Robert Forster 
13 July 1941 - 11 October 2019

mental maggots.

Awoke this morning to the news that cult legend Sid Haig had died so in way of a tribute I thought I'd revisit this classic.

Because he's in it obviously not just for shits and giggles.

Galaxy of Terror (AKA Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terrors, Planet of Horrors. 1981)
Dir: Bruce D. Clark.
Cast: Edward Albert, Erin Moran, Taaffe O'Connell, Robert Englund, Ray Walston, Bernard Behrens, Zalman King, Grace Zabriskie and the late, great Sid Haig.

"I live and die by the crystals".

Across the vastness of deep space lies the desolate, storm-lashed (and somewhat soundstage like) planet Morganthus, where the sole survivor of an off screen (and therefore cheap) spaceship crash is fighting a losing battle against an unseen (and therefore very cheap) alien force.

As well as battling the worst home haircut this side of Dario Argento.

And I know which is scarier.

No surprises when I tell you that it's the haircut that wins.

Back at space headquarters (alright then, the portacabin round the back of the studios that Roger Corman uses to store his porn) the jolly crew of the good ship Quest are ordered to mount a rescue mission at the behest of the mysterious 'Planet Master', a strange old man in a second hand suit with a red lightbulb for a head who appears to spend his day playing a table-top version of Pong.

Welcome to the future, eighties style.

Leading the mission is the Planet Master's bezzie mate, the piss-stained and gin soaked soon to be retired Bobby Ilvar (Behrens, the voice of Obi Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars radio series) who, alongside his mismatched team that includes bewigged mentalist Captain Trantor (Twin Peaks hottie Zabriskie), the scarred lone survivor of a previous secret mission; the Tom Selleck alike Cabren (Albert from Power Rangers: Time Force) and the bottle rocket, wooden legged second-in-command Billy Baelon (soft core porn master and former Jesus, King), are charged with locating any survivors as well as looking for some vague and secret stuff whilst they're at it.

I tried not to think too much about the plot seeing as no-one involved seemed to be bothered.

"I can see your house from here Peter".

Also aboard is Cabren's ex squeeze, the harsh-faced psi-sensitive (whatever that means) Alluma (Happy Days' Joanie Cunningham, Moran, who's frankly seen better days - and much better gear before now), chief cook and bottle washer Melvin Kore (My Favourite Martian Walston), and the pube bearded, mightily manbreasted hardman Hilary Quuhod (genre stalwart Haig and the reason we are here), master of the deadly Perspex boomerangs.

There are a few other folk aboard too but frankly it'd be easier all round if you just imagine a couple of pieces of hardboard decked out in sub standard bri-nylon (and nipple revealing) Battlestar Galactica uniforms.

Oh, and Freddy Krueger in a ginger Abraham Lincoln beard.

Engaging warp drive (which is just off Stella Street) The Quest soon arrives at it's destination and the crew begin their search for any survivors.

And the ships supply of chocolate biscuits.

And quite possibly any evidence of an original idea.

Unfortunately they find nothing but a load of leftover sets from Battle Beyond The Stars strewn with litter and a few shop window dummies smeared with jam and hanging from the roof.

Baelon, angered by such a waste of yummy toast topping goodness decides to set fire to everything around him whilst the rest of the crew (including the jittery Johnny Deadsoon) split up and have a wee scout around.

But obviously not in a John Wayne Gacy way.

Tho' that would probably make the whole thing that wee bit more entertaining.

Bored with burning stuff and annoyed by Alluma's constant whining about 'dark energies' Baelon orders everyone back to The Quest for tea and toast, a decision that cheers everyone up except poor Deadsoon, who has to stay behind to find his hat that he's dropped.

Suffice to say that within seconds of the others leaving he's killed by what looks like a big rubber testicle that jumps on his back and squeezes his head till it pops.

"And when I'm anally violated I pull THIS face!"

Realizing one of their number is missing the crew head back across the studio rubbish tip (sorry, alien landscape) to look for him, giving the frighteningly pneumatic Dameia (O'Connell from Caged Fury) an excuse to tell everyone how much she hates maggots and how she'd be loathed to have one swim up her (ample) arse.

Reader take note, this may be important later.

Back on board The Quest everyone sits down for a quick Pot Noodle whilst Dameia and general dogsbody Powell Ranger (Englund with shit facial hair and some ginger pubes glued to his head) perform a fairly shoddy autopsy on their fallen comrade and the body of some bloke they found in a cupboard.

Their findings?

Both men were killed by terror.

A probable galaxy full of it.

A Galaxy (minus the terror) yesterday.

After pudding and a glass of milk our motley band decide to have a better look around the planet, starting with a huge pyramid-like structure they singularly failed to notice earlier (well it was a wee bit foggy) and Ilvar feeling a bit left out splits everyone (with the exception of Trantor who's frankly barking and chef who's busy cooking brine for supper) into two teams.

Their mission: discover stuff.

To make it more exciting Ilvar offers first group to reach the summit the chance of winning a teddy bear.

Buffeted by the harsh winds and spooked by the scary synth sounds Ilvar, Dameia and Cabren are first to clamber up the structure (the others have stopped for a picnic at the bottom), discovering a series of slightly sexual looking holes jutting from the pyramids sides, poor Ilvar, stuck between a moustachioed stud and a strip queen, decides to exert his manliness by abseiling down one of these mysterious openings for a quick poke around.

Unfortunately it's him that gets a poking from a gaggle of rubbery (why thank you!) blood sucking tentacles.

"Laugh now!"

Shrugging their shoulders in a fairly apathetic manner before moving on, Dameia and Cabren have soon met up with a still angry Baelon, a still whiny Alluma and always manboobed Quuhod at the pyramids summit where they find a set of giant plasticine doors that lead deep into the structures bowels.

Leaving Quuhod on guard at the entrance (frankly the stench of all that testosterone and sour man milk must be getting to them by now) the rest of the gang head down toward their destiny.

Which in Erin Moran's case is a lifetime of appearances at a number of supermarket openings, conventions and rehab centres.

Your mums cum face. Trust me, I know.

Back aboard the Quest, Ranger is having a severe case of the sweats and Kore skulks around the kitchen in a mysterious manner whilst Captain Trantor sits in the ships gun turret, dribbling down her jumper and playing space invaders whilst swearing like a pikey on heat.

No change there then.

Bored shitless to a point where he's cleaning his nails with the sacred boomerangs, Quuhod is surprised by a scary "BOO!" noise behind him, causing the poor sod to accidentally chop off his arm.

If that wasn't enough the severed arm takes on a life of its own and proceeds to stab it's previous owner to death with his own weapon.

Which is nice.

Hearing the commotion and upset that her breasts are too large to enable her to squeeze any further into the pyramid, Dameia rushes to Quuhod's aid only to stumble over his by now maggot riddle corpse lying in a pool of blood and piss.

Hang on, did someone say maggots?

"Put it in me!"

As Dameia tiptoes around her dead comrades corpse she (remarkably) fails to notice that one of the maggots has started growing to giant size behind her, only realizing that something's wrong when the beast flops down on top of her like a big inflatable penis and begins to tear her clothes off whilst thrusting and grunting the way that normal maggots don't.

What your girlfriend was up to on
that girls night out last week.

Vainly trying to escape by wriggling her slimy arse and rubbing her gloop covered breasts, Dameia is soon overpowered by the horny horror, breathing her last as the beast pumps her full of it's manky maggot muck.

At this point I have to say that as a twelve year old I was under the impression that this was quite possibly the greatest scene ever committed to celluloid but as I got older and more aware of political correctness and the evils of sexism I began to realize that this wasn't the case.

It's far too short for one thing.

And it's way too dark.

(stringy) shite in mah mooth!

This sex based slaying is only the beginning of the horror tho', as within minutes Trantor has accidentally set fire to her face, the cook has gone AWOL, bow-legged Baelon has been bummed by the bin men and poor old Alluma has been squeezed to death by some rampant, slime covered Hoover attachments leaving a by now shot to fuck Ranger and a fairly concerned Cabren the only survivors.

As the perky pair approach the pyramids inner sanctum, they begin to realize that their might be more to the mysterious planet Morganthus than meets the eye and leaves them wondering....

Where the fuck is the chef?

From the minds of writer/director Bruce Clark, little known designer James Cameron and the genius that is Lord Roger of Corman, Galaxy Of Terror maybe a cheap and nasty knock off with more aliases than a serial adulterer and be more likely to give you crabs than a sleepless night but it's still capable of entertaining you along the way.

Just like your mum in fact.

You can imagine the whole thing being greenlit on the strength of the poster alone and when Clark turned round to Corman and said "Then this huge maggot shags a naked bird to death" you just know it was a done deal.

But then any movie that features aliens, sex, gore and a former member of the Happy Days cast being squeezed to death by household appliances painted green should automatically be pushed thru' for immediate production, imagine how much better the world would be if this were the case.

As an added bonus it's great to sit back and enjoy self proclaimed "King of The World" James Cameron doing what he does best, that is operating a giant rape maggot as opposed to forcing badly plotted overlong remakes of Ferngully on us.

The scenes final moments when the huge quivering beast grunts and thrust one final time over O'Connell's prone form is at once incredibly arousing and mildly disturbing, you can imagine Cameron, teeth gritted and with a semi in his shorts sweating and cursing as he becomes one with the monster costume, imagining himself fucking every last dollar out of the worldwide cinema audience.

Or is that just me?

O'Connell: you would.

As you can probably tell, I secretly love Galaxy Of Terror in the same way as you always have a soft spot for that plump, middle aged housewife you got in touch with via those sleazy 'contact' magazines you purchased as a bet when you were fourteen.

You remember, the one from Edgebaston that made you a man then gave you tea,d biscuits and a cuddle whilst telling you about her disabled husband?

Galaxy Of Terror, scarier than your dad, sleazier than your little sister and a damn sight more fun drunk than both of them.

You need this.

And the cult movie genre needs more guys like Sid.

GODDAMMIT!!! MOTHERFUCKER GOT BLOOD ALL OVER MY BEST SET OF ANGEL WINGS!!!!!! 

 SID HAIG
1939 - 2019

terrance dicks

“For an adventure that was to be one of the most astonishing of the Doctor’s very long life, it all began very quietly.” 

A sad day for Doctor Who - Terrance Dicks RIP.

"like tears in the rain."

RiP Rutger Hauer.

Listening to this in tribute.

avon's calling.

RiP Paul Darrow.

45 grave.

Fairly disturbing gravestones from around the world.