Will Smith: From fangirl to reluctant re-ignited interest.

It has been quite the year for Will Smith. In addition to his award-poised film King Richard, he has released an autobiography, one Youtube series tie in called Best Shape of My Life and a Disney + series Welcome to Earth, about the wonders of planet earth. 

Here is the thing about Will Smith. 

I’ve been a fan of his since I was a teen. It started with the Dreamworks animated film Shark Tale in 2004, and remember being blown away by it and counting the days until I could rent it on DVD. Thanks to that film and its various references to mafia movies, I discovered many other gems such as Goodfellas, Carlito's Way, Scarface and all the other Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese movies. 

I was aware of Smith since I saw Independence Day in the late nineties. My father had a VHS copy of it. After watching Shark Tale, I started researching Smith’s movies and I came to adore his work. I loved how sensitive he was and I loved his gusto, swagger and charisma. And for quite a while, I consumed all of his content as I do with Benedict Cumberbatch, my current celeb obsession (8 years to be exact lol)

Then came 2008. 

He had two movies come out that year. Hancock & Seven Pounds. I really enjoyed both of them. But then he didn’t work for four years. At the time, he said that he wanted to get into politics, but that didn’t seem to come about. I had no idea why he took a break and I heard rumours it was because his film Seven Pounds was badly received and he had expected an Oscar nomination. 

It turned out he was essentially being a stay at home dad while his wife Jada Pinkett Smith worked on her own movies and production companies and series.

So he was absent for four years. Then he made the second sequel to Men in Black, which I found to be completely useless, though it was a better film than the first sequel by a long shot - owing mostly to Josh Brolin’s performance as the younger Agent K. 

Then there was After Earth. Oh boy.

I’ve never seen the film, and I don’t plan to. Apparently Smith was responsible for much of the writing and directing on the film, M Night Shyamalan being credited as the helmer. There was a lot of influence in the script from the teachings of Scientology - which, if you’ve done your research on, is an abusive cult with a lot of power.

The film bombed super hard and it left Smith depressed. He also admitted that around this time, his marriage to Jada Pinkett was on the brink of ruin. 

He subsequently appeared in a cameo as the devil, named The Judge, in Winter’s Tale, but it just didn’t work. To play the devil, you need two things. One is charisma, that Smith absolutely has, and the other is the ability to scare the shit out of people, which he doesn’t have. 

Then came Suicide Squad and this time, he made a different choice in his roles. He plays one of the bad guys- a hitman named Deadshot. This was a step in the right direction. Playing someone who was very different than him, and whose morals didn’t aline with his. Sadly the film was terrible, despite its stellar casting and brilliant anti-heroes. 

In 2016 that year, he played the real life Nigerian pathologist Bennet Omalu, who becomes a whistleblower to the covering up of the damage done to NFL players when they repeatedly collide against eachother. 

This film was actually good, but nothing really special, as I was reminded too much of the anti tobacco film The Insider (which funnily enough is mentioned in the movie)

Smith was brilliant in it despite his shaky Nigerian accent. He said he was reluctant to take on the role as he and his family were big NFL fans and the film portrays the multi billion institution negatively.  He was nominated for a Golden Globe that year but not an Oscar, and he boycotted said ceremony along with several others due to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Which I found to be a little immature on on his part, since the Academy Awards that year weren’t as white as people claimed. Many people of colour won that year, just not in the acting categories.

He then starred in a film called Bright, where he plays an asshole cop in a fantasy world full of elves, orcs and magic wands. And the same year, Collateral Beauty - where he plays a grieving father who writes letters to Love, Time and Death.

Trust me when I say that Suicide Squad is a masterpiece compared to these two films. Bright has all of the bad decisions a fantasy film should make while Collateral Beauty appears to justify the psychological torture of a broken, grieving man as well as gaslighting. It was also cringingly melodramatic to the point that it actually made people laugh unintentionally rather than cry. 

I was beyond disappointed with how bad these two films were and I lost faith in his decisions as an actor. 

But Will then did something even braver than playing a bad guy - he took on the role of the Genie in the live action remake of Aladdin. This character was made famous by the late great Robin Williams. It was created for him and he became that character. So in order to take on that role in the remake, Smith would have to play himself. 

Which he did. Like a lot of the Disney live action remakes, this film fails in comparison to its animated counter part. Smith, however, managed to be the only thing in the movie that sparked energy and smiles. It must not have been easy bearing all of the weight of Robin William’s legacy on his shoulders. 

Two other movies came out after that that I skipped: Gemini Man and Spies in Disguise. I did however watch Bad Boys III in the cinemas, one of the few ones I actually got to see in theatres in 2020. And I enjoyed it. Mostly because I was relieved that Michael Bay wasn’t going to direct it. There are some jokes and situations in the first two movies, especially the second one, that are unforgivably bad. 

And now we come to King Richard, in which he stars in a biopic of Venus and Serena Williams’s father Richard, telling the story of how the two tennis champions started out and the struggles their father went through to lead them to success. 

After premiering at Telluride, there was an outpour of praise for Smith’s performance, calling it the best of his career and sure to win him his first Oscar. He was nominated in 2001 for playing Muhammed Ali in Michael man’s biopic Ali and for playing Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness. 

What I really wanted to see from this performance is once again something different. A flawed character with charisma. And it delivered. He captuured all the nuances, the flaws and the empowering moments of the character brilliantly. Not only is he great in it, the film is great too. And I’ve been waiting so long for Will Smith to be good in a film that is well written and directed.

My favorite scenes are actually when he gets confronted and called out for his overbearing, controlling attitude towards his children, especially the peanut butter sandwich scene with his wife Brandy. It’s here that we find out that he’s not the saint that his children and the audience thought. He has had several other children besides his daughters with Brandy. When he pushes her too far, she refuses to stay quiet - but remains on his side. Later he goes to his daughter and tells her a story about how, as a young teen, he was beaten in a racist attack for touching a white man accidentally. And he saw his father run away from him. He breaks down in tears saying that he’ll never do the same to Venus. 

I won’t lie, I was sobbing during this scene. It reminded me of my own father, how he wasn’t really too present in my life and he’s no longer with us.

The film won me over in that regard. But it sadly did not erase all of the other disappointments in his filmography. 

Now to his memoir, released at the same time as not one but two of his docu series Best Shape Of My Life and Welcome To Earth (ironically named after one of his lines from Independence Day)

And I have to say, I and many others out there know more about him, his wife and his family than I would probably have cared to know. Mostly because excepts of his various crazy sexcapades went viral online. 

The strongest parts are definitely in the beginning. His childhood was rough, growing up with an abusive, controlling father who regularly beat his mother and the children and was a control freak with the way he handled family life. 

Such was the way for many low income families back then. Will talks about how he used to comedy to not only gain sympathy but also survive. He labels himself a coward for not protecting his mother and other people from harm. 

There are also sections in which he contemplates the relationships he has with different people in his life - from his girlfriends, his wives, his father and other well known figures such as Nelson Mandela, James Avery and Muhammad Ali.

There are quite a few important details of his life and career that are missing. One of course is the Janet Hubert debacle. Hubert played Aunt Janice on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and was one of the reasons the show was so popular. During the third season however, she was pregnant and was going through a difficult time. She didn’t laugh at Will’s jokes and Will at the time was extremely immature and insecure. He went on to call her a difficult diva in the press. He didn’t realise the implications of what that could do to a woman like Janet, a dark-skinned woman in Hollywood at the time. She literally lost everything. Her family disowned her, Hollywood blackballed her. She had just gotten out of a very abusive marriage and had a newborn baby. She was completely alone. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for her. She was a talented Broadway actress on her own with no one to support her. While he became one of the biggest movie stars on the planet. Not a good look.

There are also many films that he worked on that I would have liked a bit more insight on, such as refusing to kiss Anthony Michael Hall in Six Degrees of Separation out of fear of what the black community would think of him kissing another man on the lips. Or playing a doctor who whistle blew on the NFL when they covered up life-threatening head injuries of their players. He doesn’t really go into the social issues surrounding him or the films he’d been a part of. Or how other people are really feeling. Except when it directly affects him and when his family and friends confront him about it.

Then there is the Scientology school he and Jada set up in California that went bust. Though it’s clear that Will and Jada aren’t actual Scientologists, they were affiliated with it at some point. He was good friends with Tom Cruise after all, and even had Cruise’s adopted son play the younger version of Will’s character in Seven Pounds. After watching several documentaries and documentary series on the matter, and seeing the horrific practices they enforce on people and their families, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth that he and Jada see it as a religion and not for what it really is: a cult. There is a moment in Leah Remini’s book Troublemaker in which she recalls the Smiths attending a party held by Tom Cruise - and Cruise insisted all of them, all grown adults, to play a game of hide and seek. Very weird. And it makes me uncomfortable that he doesn’t address it. 

Despite hating abuse against women due to what he witnessed in childhood, he not only doesn’t recognise feminism for what it is, or realise how it affects black women, he also engaged in chauvinistic behaviour in his youth, and continues to make questionable remarks about women both in this book and in real life.

In a few chapters, I was also put off by the amount of times he mentioned how much money each of his films made. Nothing about his co stars, his craft or the directors (apart from a select few such as Michael Mann, Gabriele Muccino and Stephen Spielberg). 

It’s clear that he’s a flawed guy who is really just trying his best. But he also wants be the best at everything (something I noticed in his docuseries best shape of my life) and that is impossible. 

He talks about how as a black man in Hollywood he felt he had to be super successful and chose all the right roles in order to be the perfect role model - or at least be super accessible to white audiences. He admits that he is an adrenaline junkie - incapable of sitting down and enjoying himself, due to what’s happened to him in his past.

It was definitely an interesting read, but I wanted a bit more from this memoir. Maybe in the future he’ll write another one and fill in some gaps.

With these two docuseries and the memoir, I feel that although I see an interesting, flawed yet very human character in Will Smith, it kind of cheapens the characters that he plays on screen. Because they all inhabit some force, a desire, a memory or a person in his life that we already know very well thanks to him revealing all of his secrets. Although that’s what a lot of actors do, most of them keep it private. and want to focus on the message and the story they are telling. 

Knowing so much about Will and Jada’s private lives and then watching them perform on screen is like opening a present on Christmas Day that is no longer a surprise. 

My 15 year old self loved Shark Tale and loved Will Smith. And when you’re that age you don’t really care what your fave does, as long as he entertains you. And while it maybe too late for him to be the ultimate role model for me now, a comeback that is both inspiring and tear-jerking will always be welcome in my books.

Despite rooting for Benedict Cumberbatch at the 2022 Oscars to win Best Actor for The Power of the Dog, I would ultimately accept that he deserved to win for King Richard. 

But then the slap happened. 

During an opening monologue for Best Documentary, stand up comedian Chris Rock poked fun at Jada’s haircut, calling her G.I Jane, possibly unaware that the actress suffered from alopecia. Will at first was seen laughing at the joke, but when he saw how upset Jada was, things escalated quickly. 

And I mean quickly.

He walked up to Rock and violently slapped him across the face, before calmly returning to his seat. Rock pulled it together, saying in surprise “Will just slapped the shit out of me!”

People thought it was staged - until Will screamed loudly twice from his seat “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth!’

What followed was the most still, deadly silence ever, with tension that could be cut with a knife. He later went on to win Best Actor for his role in King Richard. In a teary speech, he apologised to the Academy and his fellow nominees, but then went on to justify his actions, saying “love can make you do crazy things.”

There was so much irony in that action - that Benedict Cumberbatch, who played a nasty, mean, abusive and toxic character in a film about the deconstruction of toxic masculinity, would lose to a man who on the night of the Oscars, displayed immense amount of toxic masculinity, and was cheered for it. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d slapped someone. He slapped and punched Charlize Theron by accident on two separate occasions. Both times was when he worked with her on the films Bagger Vance and Hancock. The second time he appeared to blame her for the incident when she didn’t perform the blocking right, and played it down to "two kids messing around on the playground." 

It told me three things: One was that he still hasn’t handled his issues with his marriage. Two that he’s still the entitled man-child who hasn’t yet grown up, and who doesn't think about what the consequences of his actions would have on other people. And three, that he still feels he needs to control those around him.

He had based his character Richard Williams (the caring yet infuriatingly controlling egomaniac), on his own father, the abusive tyrant. As well as himself. His unfortunate clinging on to his father’s approval, and defending his actions, no matter how horrible they were, is concerning.

In perhaps the same way that in the film, Richard stops his daughter Venus from training and turning pro, as well as adding pressure and promoting his own ego, Will defended his wife’s honour by committing violence against another person who dissed her. 

His version of love and his notion of what a man needs to be, is sadly very skewered and misplaced.

What should have been a lifetime achievement for him, turned out to be an embarrassing display of egotism and lack of self control. 

Denzel Washington told him after the incident that “At your highest moment, be careful. That’s when the devil comes for you. ”

Hm. If Mr Washington had such skills in foresight, maybe he should have told him beforehand?

Chris Rock may have been the recipient of the assault, but Will will have to contend with this incident for the rest of his life. 

A sad end to a legacy, indeed. 

"The Boys" series review

  WARNING: SPOILERS

I am a huge Marvel fan. And over the years, I’ve immersed myself in the many films and TV series of the MCU. They are total escapism most of the time, but also do not shy away from important themes, such as grief, rage, race, sexism, good vs evil, responsibilty and collateral damage.

 

If I had to pick a favourite scene from any of the MCU movies, it would have to be the Sokovia Accords debate in Captain America Civil War. In the film, the Avengers, while chasing down bad guys, cause an explosion in Lagos that kills several civilians. The United Nations then decide to impose a sanction on the super-heroes by making them sign the Sokovia Accords – a paper that signals where and when they should go to work. Lagos is the latest in their casualties, Sokovia (in Avengers Age of Ultron) being the worst. But not all of them are in agreement, thus creating a “civil war” after Captain America’s friend Bucky is once again brainwashed into doing nasty deeds. 

 

This was the first time a super-hero movie properly addressed collateral damage to both civilians and buildings full of people. And the danger that super-heroes could impose in the real world. 

 

Civil War only scratched the surface of that idea. 

 

Amazon’s The Boys dives into it full throttle. 

 

Litterarly.

 

The series opens with two super-heroes, Queen Maeve and Homelander stopping a group of robbers, before taking selfies with fans. Then it cuts to one of our main protagonists, Hughie Campell, being surprised by his girlfriend Robin at the store where he works. They have a loving conversation outside, with him holding her hands. 

 

That’s when his world his completely shattered and torn apart, when a super fast hero, A-Train (parodying The Flash) runs into Robin at his full speed.

 

And she explodes into blood, bone and gore, leaving poor Hughie completely traumatized and  still holding the dismembered hands of his girlfriend. 

 

And that is the inciting incident of The Boys. 

 

Hughie is soon recruited by a man called Billy Butcher, a shady, vengeful Englishman hell bent on taking down the “supes”, people with super-human abilities, namely the ones at the very top.

 

A, Train, Homelander and Queen Maeve are part of a team of “Supes” called The Seven, and they are owned by a massive corporation called Vaught, run by cold, self-serving sycophanths whose goal is to boost the Supe’s ego, make merchandise, movies and eventually move them into the military. The top Supe is Homelander, a sociopathic, sadistic narcasist who will do any thing to keep his image of the perfect poster boy for America – including letting a plane full of civilians die and threatening anyone closest to him with death when they overstep their “boundries”.

He is also the one Billy Butcher is after, since years earlier, Homelander raped his wife Becca and caused her to flee, never to be seen again. 

Starlight, the newest recruit to the team, is delighted when she gets to be a part of the Seven’s world and save people. But those hopes are woefully shattered when she is sexually assaulted by The Deep (a parody of Aquaman) and that the Seven’s image is more important than actually saving lives. 

 

 

Pretty much everyone except for Starlight in the Seven is a terrible human being in some way or another. But Homelander is the worst since he is the leader of the Seven and pretty much runs the whole show. 

Despite this, the rest of the Supes have relatable qualities. A Train is a reckless drug addict who brags about killing Robin to another supe, but he is like this because of his obsession with winning and his crippling addiction to Compound V – a drug that gives people their super powers. As for The Deep, you start off by hating him and then end up pitying him – since he is both a pathetic joke as a human being, and as a super hero who cares deeply for the ocean, but fails miserably to save its creatures. This is due to his disgust for his body – he has large gills on his stomach (in one hilarious scene, after taking LSD, he talks and sings with the gills).

 

Vaught represents the ultimate massive pharmaceutical company that expands beyond just kissing the ass of super-heroes and spoon feeding everyone bullshit about how brilliant they are. They have secretly been administrating compound V to infants in order to give them super powers,  with the consent of their parents through bribes. But they go even further by administrating it to adults – namely terrorists – in order to get super-heroes in the military. 

 

And if that wasn’t already deeply corrupt – the founder of the company, Fredirick Vaught, was a Nazi, who, back in the late 1930s, invented Compound V and was going to use it to create the ultimate army of super humans in order to take over the world and create a global fascist regime.

The second season involves a new recruit to the team called Stormfront, a sassy, if slightly insensitive woman. The Seven try to track down a super-terrorist, that just happens to be Kimiko's, the mute, female member of the Boys, brother. 

And in the third episode, while chasing down Kimiko's brother, Stormfront shockingly shows her true colours. She mercilessly murders many innocent people of colour, before torturing and killing the terrorist, calling him racial slurs. She then blames the murders on the terrorist. 

Homelander is angry about this. But not because she ruthlessly murdered black people, but because she robbed him of his opportunity to kill the terrorist himself. 

It turns out Stormfront is 100 year old nazi and the wife of Frederick Vaught. She was once known as Liberty in the 1970s, but disappeared after she was linked to a brutal hate crime. 

Highly sadistic, powerful and horribly evil, adding to her being a literal nazi makes her truly one of the most despicable villains on a show already teeming with rotten, bad people.   

And her beatdown by all of the super-powered heroines and defeat at the hands of a boy she wanted to turn into white supremacist in the last episode of season was intensely satisfying to watch.

 

"Girls do get it done." ;)

Aya Cash plays the character exeptionally well. So well in fact, that several people sent her hate mail for playing such a deeply awful character. I think this was out of line, especially considering the fact that Cash is Jewish herself, and portraying this character must have been incredibly difficult. 

The comics, which were written in the mid-2000s, are far more violent, unflinching and cynical. But I think what this adaptation does is not only bring the characters and the story more down to earth and three dimensional, but the changes made to the series feel relevant to things going on in the world. The #MeToo movement, racism and white supremacy, attitudes towards refugees, and bad behaviour normalised by powerful companies in order to keep their image and their money.

All in all, if you're looking for a superhero series that is something different, edgy, thematically powerful and R rated as hell, this is the one for you.

Oh, and there is also a reference to the Spice Girls which is absolute gold. 

Korina (a short story about suicide)

A chill went down my spine as screams and sobs filled the main office.

I knew the sound of that glass breaking would haunt all of us in the room for

the rest of our lives, like the shards pricking at our insides over and over.

We were on the eighth floor of the building. Several people peered out of

broken window to look down. Some stayed there, others recoiled in horror.

As though guided by an invisible rope, I glided towards the window. I was

shaking, but unafraid. My morbid curiosity always got the better of me. My

high-heels crunched the broken glass as I reached the window.

I stared ahead at the vast, cloudless sky. Then I looked down and saw her.

Korina, clad in her black jacket and pencil skirt, lay twisted on the ground,

blood pooling around her head, and, even from this height, I could see a

bone sticking out of her ankle.

Beads of sweat accumulated on my temple and neck. I collapsed on to a

nearby chair and wiped my forehead. I suddenly felt dehydrated and cold at

the same time.

Through the rest of the day I watched almost everyone at the office go

through some sort of meltdown. New sides to people I had worked with for

so long emerged. It was uncomfortable and frightening. The most

vulnerable, inner parts of people were on display. The tough guys cried, the

women were blubbering messes and the bosses were completely at odds at

what to do with everyone. I heard my boss say in a shaken voice to the

police that she had planned to get safety glass installed in all of the floors.

I tried to make myself useful by getting people coats and hot drinks for the

shock, hugging other co-workers to give them a little comfort and providing

the police with as much information as I could.

To work hard had always been my motto. Always being occupied was

essential. So when Claire told me to go home with everyone else in our

office, I was taken aback. This was not like her to send me home. She had

always revered my willingness to work overtime. But now, at only one in the

afternoon, she was insistent that I take the rest of the day off.

Throughout the drive home, the questions in my head doubled, tripled and

quadrupled. The main one that kept me up half the night was:

Why would Korina choose such a public and violent death, when things

seemed be going so well in her life?

A week later I arrived late and a little flustered at Cafe Bizarre. I could

already see my group settled with their drinks at the square table.

Ashley Kent, who appeared too shell-shocked to sip at her gin and tonic, and

Steve Prempton, a man I found irresistibly hot.

I brushed away my cat’s hairs from my coat and sat next to Steve. My face

flushed as his fingers accidentally brushed over my tights.

“She was so young,” said Ashley, dabbing her running nose with her napkin.

“I can’t even imagine what her parents must be going through.”

I hesitated for a moment and, plucking up my courage, opened my dry

mouth and said: “I wish I could have known her better. She always seemed

like a lovely woman. I mean….”

I struggled a bit. “Why would she do this? Did you guys know if she had

problems at home? Was it something to do with work?”

“How could it be work?” said Ashley, suddenly irritated. “In any case, we

shouldn’t go inquiring about her personal life. People do have a right to

privacy.”

I glowered at her, aghast.

“Ashley, Korina is dead!” I found myself shaking. “She threw herself out of

OUR office window. There has to be a reason for this and we should know

why.”

“I don’t want to know!” she said, bringing her tissue to her nose again.

“Well she wouldn’t do this unless she was pushed to the edge!”

“How do you know? You just said it yourself, you barely knew her.”

My hands balled into fists. She didn’t know Korina either.

Swallowing my anger, I asked as calmly as possible: “Do you know why she

did it?”

“I do.”

My heart leaped in my mouth as Steve, who was sweating profusely, spoke

the first words since I’d sat down. He swallowed, and said:

“Korina and I, well…”

An affair? Shock and indignation flushed my whole body. They were having

an affair.

All eyes were on him now. He looked down, licking his lips.

With each second he hesitated, my fury increased. When he started to fiddle

with his credit card, I exploded.

“Well WHAT?”

“It had been a few months back.” he said. “When we first started going out,

she was normal. She seemed happy. Then after a few weeks, she, er. She

started… acting strangely.”

I held my breath for a few seconds. A couple sat a few feet from us clinked

their glasses.

“She was always crying. She drank a lot. Whenever an animal appeared on

the screen of my television, she had to leave the room. I asked her what was

wrong, but she said she didn’t want to talk about it. But she finally came

clean and told me her dog had died. That’s why she never brought me to her

apartment again. The pain was too much. Then, um, two weeks ago she

asked Claire for some time off for mental exhaustion. But of course, it was

the start of the conference. There was just no way.”

I thought back on the lecture on the conference Claire had given us three

months before. She strictly forbade any of us to plan a vacation during this

time. Even interns had to be taken in to help us out.

My breathing increased as Steve continued.

“A few days later, she was drinking, heavily. I tried to talk to her, reason

with her, and get her to contact her parents. But she kept shutting me out.

Her heart was broken. It was almost like I wasn’t there.”

He paused. My heart drilled in my chest. My palms felt clammy. I’d had so

many fantasies of how he would be as a partner to me. Now I felt deeply

uncomfortable sitting alongside him.

“So you broke up with her.” I said.

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I even gave her a ring as a goodbye

gift.”

He stopped, unable to continue. He placed his hand over his mouth, his face

pale.

Ashley screeched her chair backwards and made a bolt for the bathroom.

He and I were both alone. The chatter around us sounded like a distant noise.

I tried to remember how Korina had been that day. Jittery, for sure. But she

had been like that for a month. Her composure was refined, her

conversations with everyone else were short and to the point. And she had

never really one for banter.

As I pictured her walking among the cubicles, I remembered one small detail

I had overlooked that day. She had kept looking out of that window and

trailing her knuckle across the glass in a circle. She was still keeping busy

with her computer and paperwork. But she kept returning to the window,

rotating her index finger at the center of it, as though wiping off a stain.

No one else paid attention to her. I certainly didn’t think anything of it.

But now it fell into place.

The ring, Steve’s little “parting gift”, and the office, where her boss forced

her to work hard despite her mental state: she was making a point. They

were the two things that exacerbated the agonizing grief for her dog - a

gorgeous little Cairn terrier, who, according to Korina, “loved everyone”.

I glared at Steve. He started to play with his credit card again.

I pictured him with her, unable to cope with her tears and drinking,

abandoning her in her most desperate hour, leaving behind only an

expensive ring for comfort.

Everyone had deserted her; her pride and joy, the sympathy of her boss and

the man she was going out with.

No person should ever have to cope with so much loss.

Tears prickling my eyes, I grabbed my bag and ran out of the bar.

Once I was alone in my car, the floodgates opened. For Korina, her family,

wherever they were, and even for her beloved Cairn.

I entered my apartment with Izzy mewing at my arrival. More tears fell

down as I ripped up his food pouch and dipped the saucy meat into his bowl.

I slipped off my high-heeled shoes, sat on the sofa and turned on the game

shows.

After watching the usual quiz for fifteen minutes, I felt a chill up my arms

and saw that I had left the window open.

Izzy came back into the room, licking his jaws as I got up and walked

towards the window.

The breeze was mild and the night was calm and silent. I breathed in the

fresh air.

Korina had not been silent. She’d spoken up about her problems. But no one

listened to her.

I closed the window and turned back to Izzy, who stared at me in a puzzling

sort of way.

I nestled back onto the couch and Izzy curled up next to me.

“Don’t worry,” I said, stroking my cat’s head as he squinted. “Korina won’t

be forgotten. This time tomorrow, everyone will know the truth.”

The Potato Soldier - A Dad's Army fanfic

I waited warily in the Warmington-On-Sea church hall.  The newly cleaned wooden floors creaked under my feet as I paced around. One of the posters on the wall caught my eye; a framed photograph of Winston Churchill, his head obscured in a bowler hat, in a background of airplanes and tanks with his quote “Let us go forward, together.” stencilled underneath.

I smiled when I read the slogan, and noticed the picture was leaning slightly to the left. I walked over and tipped slightly to the right to put it in the centre again.

The moment I took my fingers away from the wooden frame, it dropped on the floor, emitting a loud crash. I jumped out of my skin, my heart in my mouth. I stared at the broken frame, the glass shattered on the floor, Churchill’s face crumbled up like a withering old man, the photo caught in escape from the frame.

My father often reminded me was the clumsiest person he had ever known. I shook him off. Mistakes made could always be mended.

I inspected it further; it was only the glass. Captain Mainwaring wouldn’t notice such minor damage. I brushed the glass under the wardrobe and left the picture where it was. 

Men’s voices were suddenly heard from outside, and I realised the Home Guard platoon were starting to arrive. I walked to the centre of the room and stood to attention. An older gentleman was belting out a chant and the rest of the men echoed it fervently. 

“I don’t know but it’s been said/Nazi troops are better dead/One for all and all for one/They don’t like it up them.”

The platoon entered the church hall in a quick march. The one making up the bizarre slogans wore a multi-coloured collection of medals on his breast, a private’s hat and a thin grey moustache above his lips. 

At first, the men did not seem to notice me. They formed in three ranks, carefully avoiding my proximity, as though I were the usual piece of furniture. They smelt of rain and soil. They were real men, so why was I not real to them?

The old man halted the platoon and everyone stood to attention.  His arms were spread apart, as though he was about to attack. 

“Now listen boys, today Mr. Mainwaring’s gonna give you an important lesson on bayonet practice. As much the guns are important in this war, there’s nothing that puts the wind up Gerry like the old cold steel. They don’t like it up them, they DO NOT like it up them!”

I suppressed a giggle. The man standing next to me groaned. He was a lot younger than the head officer, and also supported a moustache, but a black one, matching his greased hair. 

As he walked along the first rank for inspection, old man’s little eyes finally found me. He stared at me in an odd way.

“’Ello.” he leaned forward, bringing his face close to mine.

“SARGE.”

The man jumped back in a fright, going cross-eyed as though his head were a giant gong. It was the normal way to address a senior officer, assuming this was who the man was.

“There’s no need to shout, I’m standing right here!”

“Sorry, sir.”

The man blinked and frowned a little.

“What’s your name then?”

“Private Jonathan G. Hammersmith, transferred from the Suffolk R.A to the Warmington-On-Sea Home Guard platoon. At your service sir.”

“Ah that’s the ticket! We always love to see new recruits joining in!” he had transformed into a sweet old man; the regular elderly neighbour who wanted to invite me to tea. “I’m Lance Corporal Jones. I’m also known as Jack Jones the butcher. Or Jonesy, or Jacky, if you’ve known me for more than a year. D’ye know I served in two of the Sudanese Campaigns under Lord General Kitchener?” 

“No, sir, I did not.” 

The corporal was about to tell me a story of the Battle of Omdurman, when two other elderly officers entered the hall. One was short, pudgy and supporting a ginger moustache. The other was tall, resolute, and suave with a sharp-featured face and humane eyes.

“Sir, I took the liberty of falling in the men in three ranks.” said Jones. “You did want me to fall the men in three ranks, sir?”

“Yes, thank you corporal.” said Mainwaring. He had a posh accent and spoke in a drawling voice. 

As he gave them a lecture on the art of bayonet practice, I kept my eyes on him and the sergeant, waiting for them to notice my presence. 

By thunder, I had been standing there for at least five minutes while the captain droned on about the rudimentary history of bayonet practice. Several times, I leaned forward to glance around them all, hoping to catch someone’s attention. To no avail.

It was not the first time, nor would be the last time I would be ignored in a large group. My teachers and fellow classmates would do their upmost to forget I was a living, breathing boy, trying to learn, attempting to make friends and walking across the halls. Confound it. If it wasn’t going to change during a bloody war, it never will. 

At long last, the silver haired sergeant locked eyes with me and turned to the captain.

“Excuse me sir, there seems to be an extra soldier in the ranks.” 

Mainwaring blinked and gave a start when his eyes met mine. 

“So there is.” Mainwaring pretended not be surprised. “What’s your name, soldier?”

I introduced myself again. The captain eyed me up and down suspiciously. 

“Why were you transferred from the regular army?”

“Uhm…” 

I rehearsed my lie over and over in my head, but now that it came to actually saying it, I started to get nervous. 

“They said I couldn’t see well enough.” It was a half-truth.

“Why aren’t you wearing glasses?”

“I don’t like wearing them. They make me look old.” 

A curt, heavily Scottish lilted voice grunted the words “Damn jessy!” I turned in displeasure to my right and saw an elderly private with a gaunt face, wide angry eyes and a hooked nose. His mouth was curled into a sardonic pout. 

“Alright, Frazer.” warned Mainwaring.  

I inhaled and looked to my front. 

“Any other disabilities?” he continued.

I was not determined to appear like a “jessy” as the Scotsman seemed to interpret. I turned to the little plump man and smiled niftily.  

“We’ll just have to find out then, won’t we?”

Mainwaring remained silent while his sergeant let out a lovely little laugh. The captain was a tough person to please, but I was happy to already have the sergeant on my side. 

“Do you have any special skills?”

“Well I do play the piano rather well.” My face couldn’t help but beam as I said this. “Maybe I could perform for you one night?”

“Oh how absolutely lovely, we’d like that!” said Wilson. Mainwaring nodded curtly.

“Well I’m flattered you signing up with us, Hammersmith. After all, we always appreciate new recruits.”

I didn’t want to tell him I had no say in the matter. Choices in my case were no longer easy or even available. As the platoon set up the wooden stands in the church hall to get ready for bayonet practice, I remained silent and obedient to Mainwaring’s every command. He was dubious of me, as any new commanding officer would be. I had to show him I was capable of some form of combat, even if it was only in the Home Guard.

When all the burlap sacs had been tied properly to the cobra stands, the platoon gathered around them at the captain’s orders. To my right, I saw that Jones was breathing in and out like an agitated chihuwawa, his bayonet in hand. 

“Now remember, men.” said Mainwaring. “Focus solely on your target, and remember to scream very loudly. That will give you a burst of energy when you’re charging at the enemy.”

“I should like to volunteer to be the first person to go and prick them, sir!” said Jones breathlessly, stepping out of the neat line. 

“Please step back in the line, Jones.” said Mainwaring politely. “And wait your turn.”

At this, the corporal raised his bayonet ferociously towards the captain, but his lack of focus caused the sharp blade to point towards me instead. 

“Oh let me have a go!”

He took one step forward. Frightened at being accidently impaired, I jumped out of the ranks and shielded the captain.

“Jones, calm down, calm down!” Wilson said soothingly, raising both of his hands up.

“I can’t help it, sir, I can’t help it!” he said still gripping the rifle. “As soon as I get a whiff of action, it gets my blood boiled up like a volcano!” 

“Will you get back in the ranks, Hammersmith?!”

When I did as I was told, I saw that the captain’s glasses were askew, and his face flushed with irritation. I must have bumped into him while trying to protect both of them from the mad corporal’s cold steel. 

“Alright, Jones!” spat the captain. “Show everyone how it’s to be done.”

Jones shuffled out of the ranks again, rifle in hand mumbling: “Right sir, thank you sir, thank you sir, thank you very much sir.” 

“He really aught to be more careful…” said Wilson, looking rather pale. “I mean that bayonet could have gone anywhere.”

“He’s a keen soldier. Very tenacious. Not that you would know anything about that.” 

Wilson looked away nonchalantly 

Jones stood in front of the mark on the floor bent his knees and charged. His face turned red in a flash as he roared curses at the burlap sacs. The bayonet tore into it as though it were paper. I didn’t want to think about what could have happened if the blade had gotten to me. 

“Very good, Jones, very good.” Mainwaring said. 

“I always try my best sir, I always try my best.” 

He then proceeded to take his time marching back into the line. I could see the captain getting irritated at his tardiness. 

Godfrey came next. Unsurprisingly, his charge at the target was the complete opposite of Jones’s. He ran feebly up to the sack and stabbed it with a playful “Ha!” He turned around to the captain and the sergeant and asked with a smile if it was alright. 

“Not really, no.” said Mainwaring, his mouth curled in a disappointed twist. His eyes fell to me.

“Right, Hammersmith you’re next.” 

I stepped onto the white mark and held firmly onto my rifle.

“You won’t see Hammersmith poking the target like a child playing British Bulldogs.”

My breath intensified. 

“He’s young, fit and keen. Take it away, boy.”

No need for self-doubt now, Johnny. You’ve got to make an impression on this new captain. 

I took a powerful breath and let out a furious scream as I raged forward. I was so fired up that I forgot to stop and stab the target. The blade of my bayonet pierced the bag, alright, but so did my nose. Before I could figure out what I was doing, my whole body crashed down to the floor along with cobra stand. 

I heard a few guffaws as the smell of hay filled my nostrils. I picked myself up grudgingly. The blade of my bayonet was still stuck in the sack. I pulled it out with a fierce tug, which made me stumble backwards. I laughed nervously as I turned around to face my captain. Walker and Frazer were still snickering under their breath while the rest of the men stood to attention. Stupidly, I asked Mainwaring what he thought of my method. 

He replied curtly that this wasn’t a rugby match. I nodded in regret and took my place back in the ranks. As Wilson marched over to pick up the fallen target, Walker bumped shoulders with me. 

“Were you thinking that target was a busty lady instead of a Nazi?” he sniggered.

My mouth pouted as I stared ahead. Wilson set the cobra stand up and brushed off the dust off the target and Mainwaring announced Frazer as the next player. 

“Maybe if you stuck a bit of lipstick on it, you’d open your arms and wrap your whole body around it like an orang-utan.”

“Don’t be absurd.” I whispered icily. 

Frazer let out an ear-splitting cry as he ran, stopped and stabbed the sack with considerable force, held his head up proudly and returned to the ranks. When Walker’s turn came, I was desperately hoping he’d slip or miss the target. But he skewered right through the bag perfectly and returned to his place with this smug grin across his moustached face. Definitely a show off, even if he didn’t need to impress a girl. 

When Private Pike, the youngest member of the platoon, came to the middle of the room, Wilson began to whisper something in his ear. At this, Mainwaring became quite cross.

“Don’t mollycoddle the boy! He gets enough of that from his mother!” 

Suddenly, the stress that I had been feeling since I reached Warmington, slowly began to evaporate. I was always called a mummy’s boy in the regular army due to the unusually close relationship I had with Mum. Yet here was this younger boy taking my place away. At long last. Pike let out a nauseating, whiny yell as he ran. This time, the thrust that was supposed to hit the sack instead hit one of the wooden banisters of the churches soapbox. 

“You stupid boy!” said Mainwaring, turning pink. Pike pulled hard on his rife and the blade was set free. A large chip was missing from the rail where the bayonet struck. 

“The verger will have a field day with that!”

Pike held his head down and stepped back in the ranks. As the rest of the men took their turns in screaming and charging with their bayonets, I eased myself into Mainwaring’s orderly routine. Night patrols were to be conducted every night in and round the town to make sure no suspicious foreign invaders or fifth columnists were to be seen causing trouble.

I was to go with Jones and Pike to the town hall, where the former would instruct me what to do if we were to run into anyone suspicious. 

Before I left the church hall with the two of them, Mainwaring called me to attention.

“Take firmer grip on that rifle of yours. Hold yourself into a rigid position. Remember – you’re soldier of the Home Guard, not a sack of potatoes.”

“Yes, sir. No, sir.”

“No what?”

“I am a sack of the Home Guard. Not a potato soldier.”

I closed my eyes in embarrassment. But Mainwaring merely nodded patiently. 

“Quite right, off you go then.”

The cold air of the night burned my face as I marched forward into the streets of Walmington – but I knew better than to complain. The bruising from the bayonet practice still hurt my sides – I clutched my body to keep warm and blew into my hands to keep them warm. 

“It ain’t half cold, Mr Jones.” Shivered Pike.

“Don’t you worry, Pikey. Mr Godfrey’s coming over with cups of cocoa. Specially made by his sister Dolly.” 

“Aw, that’s awfully nice of her!” I remarked, feeling warm inside just at the thought of the beverages. 

We finally arrived at the building. A giant clock on the bell tower shining from the moonlight loomed over us as we walked over to the entrance. 

Jones put me aside and took a few steps back so I could fully see his demonstration. 

“Right, then Hammersmith.  First question, are you fully prepared to take on the enemy… fully?” 

“Yes I am, sir.”

“What kind of training did you do in the regular army? Any basic rudiments?”

“Oh yes, all of them, sir. But perhaps you’d better show some of them to me again, just in case.”

It was useless to flatter, I knew. But every little bit counted on the first day. 

“Ah, thank you Johnny!” he slapped his thigh and tightened his grip on his rifle. 

Johnny. I thought cringingly. Maybe playing nice to the old corporal wasn’t such a bright idea.

“Now the important thing you have to remember about being on patrol is being alert at all times. If someone begins to make an approach, you hold up your rifle like this,” He pointed the barrel right in front of him. “And shout out “Halt! Who goes there?” And if the person says friend, you ask him to identify himself. And if there is no response you fire a warning shot. You don’t take any chances. And if you have

any other problems, you yell out “Turn out the guard, turn out the guard!”. And we’ll come down and see what the matter is. Do you follow me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Ah! There’s Mr Godfrey!” 

The sweet old man came over with a coffee flask and three paper cups. Along with Pike and Jones, we held up our cups for Godfrey to pour. I sipped the blissful beverage and thanked Godfrey.

“My sister Dolly always used to add a little extra honey in it. But since the war broke out, we had to do without, I’m afraid.”

“It’s perfectly lovely, thank you.” I said to him, nodding vigorously. 

“Well, we all have to make do without a few things these days.” said Jones, holding the cup in both of his hands. 

Here I was, on my own again, warding the off the enemy with a calculated precision. I held up my rifle for the long hours of the night. Even with Godfrey’s cocoa, I needed to move from left to right in order to keep the temperature in my body up. One hour past, and within the next one, Walker would take my place. 

I tried my best to be alert to my surroundings without drifting off into a daydream. And think of Dorothy dreaming of a better place, over the rainbow, rather than wishing for something better over the coal black sky marked by those infernal bombs. In the mood came into my head again, along with my own little cover of it on the piano. Perhaps I could invent a few lyrics to the song. But then again, probably many other more talented performers had invented them first. 

After another hour passed, I began to hum Moonlight Serenade while swerving serenely left to right. My eyes were still alert and I was ready to confront any suspicious persons lurking about. 

Walker finally came twenty minutes later, his hands in the air when I pointed my rifle to him and repeated the phrase Jones taught me. 

“I’ve come to take over.” Walker said holding a bottle of whiskey in one hand and his cigarette in the other. 

“At last. I could do with a bit of a kip!” I rubbed my hands enthusiastically. 

“You want this bottle? I got it for a fiva off a fellow in the smoke. You can have it for 3 fifty.”

“No thank you.” I said. The last thing I wanted was to get involved in illegal black market activities. 

“Shoulda come to me earlier. It would have kept you warm.”

“Godfrey’s cocoa did the trick already, thank you.”

“Ere’” he said, coming closer. “What you doin’ here of all places for the ‘ome guard? Ain’t you got some place near London?”

“It’s too dangerous for the likes of me.” I said, quoting my former captain. “Besides I don’t really have a say in the matter.”

Walker’s annoyingly cheeky grin came back again.

“What d’you do? Sleep with the captain’s daughter?”

“I did no such thing!” 

“Slipped off the banisters and broke his favourite porcelain statue?”

“Alright, I’m leaving. Goodnight, Walker!” 

I stormed off, but not before Walker called out “Watch it in the dark, Johnny!”

I spun around and charged back at him.

“It’s Hammersmith to you!” I growled, bringing my face close to his.  “Don’t call me Johnny, do you understand?”

“Alright Hammersmith. I was only ‘avin’ a laugh!” he said, surprised by my anger.

“Goodnight, Walker.”

“Goodnight, Hammers!”

God, was there no stop to his intolerable behaviour? I thought while I marched back home. 

But I reminded myself once again there was no choice in what soldier I was going to protect the town with. 

My current home was a little cottage out in the countryside, away from the rest of the residencies but not exactly isolated. A wheat mill was a few hundred yards away from the house. My mother had set it up for me a week before I was due to come to Walmington. I didn’t like her interfering with my plans to make my own life, but she always knew best. And she was often the only friend I had when I was the only person in school, work or in military training with no one else to talk to. 

That was until I arrived in Suffolk and met Sayaan Ranjan, the Indian cook who made us dinner every night. By putting us on a diet of only fresh vegetables and what only little meat we could afford, he made us fit and healthier and created an atmosphere of warmth and camaraderie amongst us all. Our captain, Allan Tickerson however, had relatives who died in the second Sikh war in India, and despised Ranjan’s race with a fiery passion that he could barely contain. If not for his soldiers’ support of him, he would have been gone in a flash. 

When I got to my cottage, unlocked the door and stepped in, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to call my mother and let her know how I got on with the platoon. If I called her now, at three o clock in the morning, she would get worried a bomb had dropped on us. And if I called in the morning, she would be angry for not contacting her sooner. 

Letting out a deep, tired sigh, I took my boots off walked over to my bed and fell like a rock in the water. 

I thought back on my tumble into the target during bayonet practice, and felt a shiver of shame ripple down my spine. It seemed I could not concentrate in a platoon of less capable soldiers either. At the same time, I shouldn’t have been surprised. After the awful, terrible incident that brought me to this place, I was almost grateful my failure was not something worse. 

In the blackened darkness of the room, I imagined a wallpaper of bombs flying on my ceiling. Their leisurely voyage to wherever looked like clouds floating in the sky, pushed by a wind. I prayed, however useless it may be now, that no other wasteful casualties would occur on our great soil. 

Before I drifted off to sleep, my thoughts were of Private Pike. A stupid boy, Mainwaring had called him. Well, I concluded, now the captain had two on his team. 

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