THE US: Twenty-five years after his death, fans the world over are still All Shook Up by Elvis Presley - from the weeping statue of the King of Rock 'n' Roll in the Netherlands to a portrait made of toast in New Zealand.
Elvis impersonators from Manila to Manchester crooned Love Me Tender yesterday to commemorate the sad day when their idol passed away aged (42) in his Graceland mansion in Memphis.
In the German town of Bad Nauheim you can sleep in the bed occupied by Elvis when he served there in the late 1950s as the US Army's most famous GI.
British gamblers are still placing bets at odds of 1,000-1 that Elvis is still alive - and the news from the Netherlands could encourage them to hold on to their betting slips.
Dutch Elvis impersonator Toon Nieuwenhuisen said a ghost of Elvis appeared in his house last week. And now, on the 25th anniversary of his death, he said a plaster statue of Presley is shedding tears of joy.
"It's a miracle. It started at 10 o'clock this morning. I saw the tears," he told Reuters.
Across the world in New Zealand, supermarket owner Maurice Bennett spent two months fashioning a portrait of Elvis out of 4,000 small slices of toast.
"I'm totally into Elvis. I just fell in love with the man," he said of his unique tribute to the pelvis-thrusting icon.
He scored a number one hit this summer with a dance remix of A Little Less Conversation, giving him more chart toppers than the Beatles. The UK has a 20,000-strong fan club and an army of impersonators are descending this weekend on the seaside resort of Blackpool for what is billed as the biggest Elvis convention in Europe.
The Internet has shrunk the globe, giving Elvis fans a chance to stay in touch and prove that he lives on and on in the cavernous corridors of cyberspace.
Using the Google search engine alone to input the popular phrase "Elvis has left the building" yields more than 68,000 results on the Internet.
The phrase became famous after it was originally used at the end of a Presley concert to persuade fans to go home.
And devotees can cruise down the information superhighway together comparing notes on when they last saw Elvis.
On the Web site http://www.deadelvis.com, fans say they have spotted Elvis ordering peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a Nashville café and flipping burgers at a roadside stop in England. Death certainly hasn't blunted the earning power of Elvis.
Dublin publisher James Proctor should perhaps take pride of place as the ultimate Elvis optimist. He placed a €2 bet with bookmakers Paddy Power at odds of 10,000-1 that Elvis has not "left the building" and would be found alive and well by Saturday. - (Reuters)