Every day, 90-year-old Japanese grandma Hamako Mori flexes her fingers to keep them nimble. Not for knitting or needlepoint, but to keep them in shape for playing video games.
The pensioner known as 'Gamer Grandma' spends three or more hours a day battling monsters and going on missions in the virtual worlds of her favourite games, and even has a popular YouTube channel for her fans.
Ordinary old people are not so enthusiastic about video games as she is
"I'm passionate about playing games every day," the white-haired widow told AFP in an interview conducted by videochat.
"Every day is an enjoyable day," she said, describing eviscerating on-screen foes as a fantastic stress reliever.
Mori cuts an elegant, mild-mannered figure, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail and a pair of large glasses perched on her nose.
She begins the videos she posts on her YouTube channel with a friendly "Konnichiwa" – a common Japanese greeting – and a bow.
But her grandmotherly demeanour disappears when she plays, transformed into a gun-toting character in Call of Duty or a sword-wielding android in NieR: Automata.
Mori, who lives in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo with her family, holds a Guinness World Record certifying her as the world's oldest gaming YouTuber.
"She always gets into the games," her only grandchild, Keisuke Nagao, 43, told AFP.
"I think she is slightly different. Ordinary old people are not so enthusiastic about video games as she is."
300,000 YouTube fans
Mori isn't new to the gaming world, and has played some 200 titles since she took up the hobby some four decades ago.
Her first console was a Cassette Vision, which she bought in 1981 after being intrigued by her children's obsession with gaming.
"I discovered that there was this fascinating thing that existed in the world," she said.
She has played most of the gaming world's smash hits, including Super Mario Brothers, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and Call of Duty, and admits to sometimes staying up until 2am when she is sucked into a session.
Her favourite games include action-adventure series Grand Theft Auto and popular fantasy role-playing game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.
"You can do whatever you want to" in a game, she said, describing them as a "motivation in life".
Mori usually plays alone at home, but launched a YouTube channel in 2014 to connect with other gamers.
It's getting hard. It really is
She posts new videos filmed by her grandson three or four times a month and has attracted 300,000 subscribers and millions of views with content featuring her gaming, but also showing her daily life.
"It's fun being watched by a lot of people, rather than playing alone," she said of her Gamer Grandma channel.
Among her videos is one showing her blowing out candles on a cake to celebrate her 90th birthday with her family. Another features her "unboxing" a brand-new PlayStation console.
At 90, Mori is fighting fit, but she says some state-of-the-art games require agile hand motions that can prove challenging.
"It's getting hard. It really is," she said, describing exercises she does with her fingers and hands every day to keep herself game-ready.
'Better than doing nothing!'
But she has no intention of giving up gaming.
"I won't put it down just because it's difficult ... It's better than doing nothing!"
And she hopes with practice she can improve further.
"I want to play well no matter how old I am," she said. "I want to continue as long as possible."
Mori is something of an evangelist for video games, and encourages other older people to get into gaming, or find other hobbies that keep them going.
"It doesn't have to be video games necessarily. But it's good to do something," said Mori, who swam regularly until the age of 80 and still knits.
And while Mori said she understands concerns about video game addiction, particularly among young people, she pointed out that gaming may have helped many survive lockdowns over the coronavirus pandemic.
"It's safer to play at home, rather than going out," she said.
For now, Mori is eagerly awaiting the release of the PlayStation 5, due to hit shops later this year.
"It's seriously preoccupying me," she said. "I want one. I really do."
Ordinary Virtues: Moral Order in a Divided World by Michael Ignatieff
Harvard University Press
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
match info
Southampton 2 (Ings 32' & pen 89') Tottenham Hotspur 5 (Son 45', 47', 64', & 73', Kane 82')
Man of the match Son Heung-min (Tottenham)
UK’s AI plan
- AI ambassadors such as MIT economist Simon Johnson, Monzo cofounder Tom Blomfield and Google DeepMind’s Raia Hadsell
- £10bn AI growth zone in South Wales to create 5,000 jobs
- £100m of government support for startups building AI hardware products
- £250m to train new AI models
Day 3 stumps
New Zealand 153 & 249
Pakistan 227 & 37-0 (target 176)
Pakistan require another 139 runs with 10 wickets remaining
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Pakistan squad
Sarfraz (c), Zaman, Imam, Masood, Azam, Malik, Asif, Sohail, Shadab, Nawaz, Ashraf, Hasan, Amir, Junaid, Shinwari and Afridi
The Bio
Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
The stats
Ship name: MSC Bellissima
Ship class: Meraviglia Class
Delivery date: February 27, 2019
Gross tonnage: 171,598 GT
Passenger capacity: 5,686
Crew members: 1,536
Number of cabins: 2,217
Length: 315.3 metres
Maximum speed: 22.7 knots (42kph)
A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
