Latest news with #1959
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Health
- The Guardian
Twelve Post-War Tales by Graham Swift review – haunting visions from a Booker winner
There are several wars, not all of them military ones, in these deftly turned stories from Booker winner Graham Swift. With characteristic exactness and compassion, Swift considers the cost of human conflict in all its forms – and the challenge, for those who manage to stay alive, of retrieving the past. In The Next Best Thing former Leutnant Büchner, gatekeeping civic records in postwar Germany in 1959, fields a British serviceman's attempts to trace the fate of his German Jewish relatives during the Holocaust. Denial and guilt vie chillingly in a tale about the agony of looking back when there are only 'pathetic little scraps of paper' to be found. 'What did they expect, after all, what did they really hope for,' Büchner wonders, 'these needy and haunted ones who still, after 15 years, kept coming forward … To be given back the actual ashes, the actual dust, the actual bones?' In Blushes the 'ghost world' we're shown is the suddenly empty one created by the Covid pandemic, with its unpeopled streets and rising death toll. Here the war being fought is the war against disease. Hinges, meanwhile, takes us into the thoughts of a middle-aged woman during her father's funeral. As the coffin is brought to the cemetery she thinks back to a day when, as a girl, she waited with him for a carpenter to arrive and fix their creaking front door. The door, he'd explained, was 90 years old. Swift's conceptual agility is on dazzling display here: But she couldn't have thought, then, what her 49-year-old self could think: that 90 years was the length of a decent human life, though rather longer, as it had proved, than her father's. And she surely couldn't have thought then, as she thought now, that there were two things, generally made of wood, specifically designed to accommodate the dimensions of a single human being. Two objects of carpentry. A door and a coffin. It was like the answer to a riddle. Neat as the parallel is, if these stories occasionally feel a little pat, it is precisely because they are so smoothly jointed. Sometimes the 'hinge' involves a moment of slick linguistic doubleness. The carpenter in Hinges is called Joe Short – 'As in 'life is short',' we're reminded. In Black, another daughter makes sense of the way her angry coalminer father and his friends terrorised their families by concluding that 'their place was the pit and they didn't want pity'. The riddle of life, you suspect, isn't that easily solved. Where the moral focus is blurrier, the emotional payoff is often much greater. Beauty is a story of bereavement without a resolution: hoping for closure, a grandfather pays a secret visit to the university residence where his granddaughter Clare recently killed herself, only to feel like 'an old man among ghostly young people'. The tale is a haunting palimpsest of shifting impressions. While the dean is showing him to Clare's dorm, he's incongruously aroused by her beauty. She tells him that the room 'has now been cleared' and he notes that 'there was the little collision of 'Clare' and 'clear'. They were the same word.' But is anything clear? In this story the craving for life and the pull towards death are murkily intertwined. On the train back, even 'the scudding fields and trees became obscure'. The image of dissolution tugs at the heart, without trying to reel us in. Swift's interest in what a meaningful reconstruction of the past might look like achieves an even deeper resonance in the final piece, Passport. Though she's in her 80s and doesn't expect to travel again, Anna-Maria Anderson has recently renewed this official proof of identity. She concedes ruefully that 'there really was no way of travelling through time', which is what she would really like to do. But of course, there is; this story is it. As she thinks, marvelling, of her parents' love affair during the Spanish civil war and her own survival, as a baby, of the Blitz bomb that killed her mother, the piece becomes a moving reflection on the haphazardness as well as the serendipity of life. But it acknowledges something else too: the awkwardness of growing old, and its inescapable tedium. 'If life turns out to be short, well then that's cruel,' Anna-Maria decides. 'But when life is long, that can be cruel too.' Skilful, generous and humane, these 12 tales suggest the complexity and heartbreak of being engaged on such an uncertain journey. Twelve Post-War Tales by Graham Swift is published by Scribner (£18.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Time of India
7 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Arms licence scheme not valid in inter-state border areas: Himanta
1 2 Guwahati: Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday said the special scheme for providing arms licence to indigenous citizens and original inhabitants, which was cleared by the cabinet on Thursday, will not be applicable to the inter-state border areas of the state. "There were some queries regarding whether the arms license policy would also apply to inter-state border areas such as those shared with Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland. Let us clarify, Assam has always maintained that inter-state border issues are matters that can and should be resolved through mutual understanding and trust. We do not view these regions as vulnerable in the context of national security threats," Sarma wrote on X. He posted a video giving an outline of the scheme, which, rooted in the Arms Act, 1959 and Arms Rules, 2016, will be administered by the state home and political department. The policy states that only the indigenous and original inhabitants of Assam with valid ID and residing in vulnerable and remote areas facing genuine personal security threats can apply for arms licence under this special scheme. The policy mandates that the requirement of the arms licence of an individual will be assessed through police verification, intelligence-based threat assessment, mandatory recommendation from the district superintendents of police and consultation by the district magistrate with security agencies. The legal framework stipulates that the licence in the name of an individual cannot be transferred to another and misuse will lead to cancellation. An individual seeking arms licence will have to submit both the special scheme and the standard license forms together.
Digital Trends
20-05-2025
- Automotive
- Digital Trends
Fill a bit of year-long wait for Grand Theft Auto 6 with this chaotic new game
Look, it's time to face reality: it'll be another year until you can play Grand Theft Auto 6. I know, I know — you were probably hoping that you'd wake up this week and discover that its delay to May 26, 2026 was just a dream. Sadly, them's the breaks, kid. You're going to need to play some other things to fill that gap, whether its something like Mafia: The Old Country or other vehicular crime games like Mario Kart World (at least the way I plan to play it). But don't worry, I'm not just here to bum you out. I am nothing if not constructive, so I come bearing a recommendation to help ease your sorrow, if only for a few weeks. Deliver at All Costs is a delightfully chaotic new game that takes inspiration from the original Grand Theft Auto games, back when the series had a top-down perspective. It's a compact slice of open-world mayhem that GTA fans are sure to get a kick out of. Published by Konami, Deliver at All Costs follows a delivery driver named Winston who gets a new gig in the quiet town of St. Monique circa 1959. His job is simple: deliver packages around town in his crappy pick up truck. How hard can that be? Recommended Videos To answer that question, Deliver at All Costs begins with one heck of a joke. At the very start of the game, I exit my apartment and get into my car. I instinctively press down my right trigger to accelerate. Instead of moving forward, my car blasts backwards and crashes through a storefront that crumbles into a million pieces. It's a perfect introduction. It not only tells me that every piece of the city is destructible, but also that I'm in for a full slapstick comedy of errors. That's what the full game delivers over the course of its varied jobs, each of which plays with physics in creative ways. In one mission, I need to haul a living Marlin across town. It thrashes in the backseat of my truck, throwing off my steering. Another mission has me delivering a balloon inflating machine, one that keeps lifting my truck into the air anytime my wheels even slightly come off the ground. All of that happens from a top down perspective that pulls inspiration from Grand Theft Auto 2. A game like this lives and dies by how many ways it can twist a simple idea around. While its frontloaded with its best jokes, there are a lot of comedic gags throughout that keep missions diverse. One highlight tasks me with racing toy cars to kids around a neighborhood, piloting them almost like unwieldy slot cars. The cops take notice and deploy a squad of tiny police cars after me, which try to ram into my vehicles and blow them up. I didn't know what to expect next from each mission, which kept me playing even when its dull story and traditional open-world collect-a-thon hooks didn't hold my interest. The real appeal, though, is more primal. The fully destructible maps are just a delight to crash into. For the most part, I tried to do my job like a good upstanding citizen, obeying traffic laws as best as possible. Naturally, that's not always possible. I'd often find myself barreling through a building and watching bits and pieces fly out of it as I accelerated through the other side. The citizens of its explorable spaces don't take kindly to being plowed over either, as they'll attack my truck and force me to get out and repair it. Fortunately, I can craft upgrades to help me deal with that, like hydraulic doors that I can use to knock away pesky pedestrians. It all makes for some satisfying emergent comedy as I turn quiet 1950s towns into my own personal demotion derby. While it feels a little long in the tooth for what it is and uses its best ideas too fast, Deliver at All Costs is a fun little gem in the vein of something like Maneater. That is to say that it delivers a light, fun, and funny premise and executes it well enough to make it all worth the curiosity. And hey, what else are you going to do for the next year while you wait for Grand Theft Auto 6? Get behind the wheel and deliver some chaos. Deliver at All Costs launches on May 22 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
How Barbie swapped high heels for flats: a scientific analysis
From frivolous fashionista to disputed feminist symbol, Barbie has come a long way since her debut in 1959. No wonder she's finally wearing sensible shoes. A study has examined one of the more anatomically curious features of the world's most successful doll: her feet. It found that over the decades Barbie has quietly kicked off her heels in favour of more pragmatic flats. Once perpetually poised on tiptoe, newer versions are now more likely to be planted firmly on the ground — literally, and perhaps metaphorically. The study was inspired by Barbie, the 2023 film directed by Greta Gerwig and starring Margot Robbie. In one early scene, Barbie steps out of her shoes only for her feet to remain arched unnaturally in what podiatrists
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Scientists confirm woke change made to Barbie over the course of 35 years - so did you notice it?
Barbie is one of the most successful children's toys in history, spawning a multimedia franchise that includes merchandise, video games and a live-action film. Since US toy giant Mattel launched the original Barbie in 1959, more than 1 billion of the dolls have been sold worldwide. Certainly, Barbie's looks have been tweaked over the years to reflect changing beauty ideals and societal shifts. But according to a new study, one subtle change to Barbie has gone largely unnoticed – until now. Scientists in Australia have found that Barbies today have flatter feet than they did in past decades. Barbies are much less likely to be on tiptoes now because they don't come with high heels as much – but the researchers don't know if this is a deliberate change by Mattel. The multi-billion-dollar company could be bowing to pressure from health professionals who think high heels are bad for our posture. 'We found Barbie's foot posture change over time unexpected and fascinating, and perhaps something with deeper meaning or a Mattel executive direction we are unaware of,' the scientists say. By 1983, Barbie had become even more model-beautiful and future Mattel CEO Jill Barad thought the reason sales were flagging was because of the criticism the doll was sexist Barbie was created over 75 years ago by US inventor Ruth Handler, who saw a gap in the market after noticing not many children's dolls resembled adults. The first ever Barbie doll, which hit shelves in 1959, had a black-and-white striped swimsuit and a signature topknot ponytail, and stood on tiptoe to fit into high heels. But since this original iteration, many versions of the dolls have been released, all reflecting societal shifts in women's employment and body shape. In her early years, Barbie was typically sold as fashion designer, flight attendant, cheerleader or nurse. But since the turn of the century she's been a doctor, computer engineer, firefighter, footballer, a United States presidential candidate, and much more. 'Barbie is also committed to female empowerment, demonstrating "girls can do anything' through undertaking many traditionally male-dominated careers,' the experts say. For the study, lead study author Professor Cylie Williams of Monash University and colleagues performed an analysis of 2,750 Barbie dolls produced between 1959 and June 2024. According to the team, prior academic studies have assessed Barbie's body shape, but few have focused on the doll's iconic tiptoe posture. In 2023, a scene in the movie 'Barbie' drew popular attention to Barbie's foot posture, which is commonly in tiptoe posture to accommodate high heels Pictured, Barbie dolls with various footwear. From left to right, Barbie Fashionista (#171) has a high heel white ankle boot; Barbie Fashionista (#197) has a yellow platform heel with ankle straps; Barbie Interior Designer has ballet flats and a prosthetic limb; Barbie Paramedic has her workboots ready to go; Barbie Fashionista (#208) has Down Syndrome and uses sneakers to accommodate her ankle foot orthoses; Barbie Fashionista (#210) has comfy yellow slides Pictured, Barbie dolls at a Target store in San Leandro, California, April 2025. Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls, recently said it's considering raising prices on their toys in the USA in response to tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump Between 1959 and 1980, 100 per cent of Barbie dolls had tiptoe feet (known as 'equinus'). But this changed to 91 per cent in the 1990s, 94 per cent in the 2000s, 72 per cent in the 2010s and 40 per cent in the 2020s. Interestingly, there were strong links between dolls representing people of colour and the tiptoe posture. But less strong links were found between flat feet and dolls with disabilities, such as those fitted with orthoses and prosthetics. Also, researchers found 'employed' versions of Barbie are more likely to have flat-foot posture than fashion-focused dolls – largely because dolls in careers are less likely to wear high heels. And generally, the proportion of fashion-focused Barbie dolls has decreased over the 75-year period, while the career-oriented dolls has increased. 'The very strong correlation between flat foot posture and employment sits well with evidence observing Barbie 'evolving' away from prioritising fashion over her career,' the experts say. In the live action movie, Barbie's friends found her sudden flat feet nauseating and even a cause for alarm. In the real world, meanwhile, health professionals have discouraged the use of high heeled footwear since the early 1900s due to issues such as permanent posture problem and foot pain. Barbie was created in 1959 by US inventor Ruth Handler (pictured here in 1999) who saw a gap in the market after noticing not many children's dolls resembled adults However, many of these health conditions are highly prevalent in the general population with low or no high heel use, according to the scientists. They conclude in their study, published in PLOS One, that women shouldn't feel forced out of high heels. 'Health professionals castigating high heels through public messaging, should remember that emphasising health benefits consistently drives positive behaviour change, over highlighting negative consequences. 'Barbie clearly makes sensible determinations regarding her body autonomy. 'High heel wearers should have that same ability.' Time to ditch the Barbie? Playing with thin dolls can make girls as young as FIVE want a slimmer body, scientists warn Thin dolls like Barbie can make children as young as five want a slimmer body, a study warns. Scientists asked girls between the ages of five and nine to play with two ultra-thin dolls, including Barbie, and two dolls portraying a more realistic body weight. The two ultra-thin dolls, both made by American toy giant Mattel, immediately reduced the girls' ideal body size, the researchers found. Meanwhile, the two realistic dolls - Dora and Lottie - seemed to have no such effects. Thin dolls, combined with exposure to 'thin ideals' in films, on TV and social media, could lead to body dissatisfaction in young girls, which has been shown to be a factor in the development of eating disorders.
