"Look, if you don't get that camera off me, I'm going to kick you right in the *BOING*"

That’s a pretty much direct quote, uttered by yours truly, from a Christmas video shot some fifteen years ago that I’ve just unearthed and backed up from its rather grubby VHS original. Family history, and all that. A few key observations, one for each year that has since elapsed:

  1. I was a moderately unattractive eighteen year old. Things have only gotten worse since.
  2. I had really, really bad skin.
  3. My long-suffering father* can grow a particularly fine beard when he has a mind to.
  4. For some reason, we felt the need to film most of (but not all) the Queen’s Christmas speech. And bits of Carry On Jack. And Pingu. Never let it be said that our TV diet wasn’t varied…
  5. There’s a lot of profanity. And I mean a *lot*. If I ever do release it for general consumption, I’m going to have to do an awful lot of comedy BOINGing to cover it up. Some sections may sound rather like two elephants making love on a trampoline, such is the level of bad language. It should be noted that I’m not responsible for all of it.** There’s mention in the footage of sending it out to relatives, and I think the mammoth (at the time — it was 1992) task of altering it from R18+ to PG rated eluded us. It’s a minor miracle it’s survived this long, all things considered.
  6. I’m also rather fond of a rather insulting hand gesture, used repeatedly. Not sure how I’m going to edit that out.
  7. I still can’t quite work out why so much time was spent, in late December, outside. With me wearing only a T-Shirt. A Red Dwarf T-Shirt that only fell apart a year or two ago, but was kept far too long for sentimental reasons.
  8. Cats don’t like being filmed (or wearing party hats) , especially young Chudleigh and Iska***. Exe and Exemoor had fewer problems and thus appear far more frequently.
  9. I can’t quite recall why, but all throughout the entire thing we refer to my father, quite formally, as “father”. Not sure if that was by request, or to annoy him. Given my general teenage surliness, probably the latter.
  10. Pilotwings. SNES. In video. Must buy a PAL copy.
  11. My sister was rather a dab hand at Super Mario World back in the day.
  12. I had this wonderful idea to record myself finishing SNES games and then flogging them as complete solutions, years before YouTube. If I’d followed through with that idea, I might be a billionaire today. Then again, the end of the footage is mostly Anna and I playing the aforementioned SMW, rather badly, and it’s not the most thrilling thing, leaving aside our rapidly mutating Aussie/Cockney accent mixes, which are sort of fascinating.
  13. I can recognise discipline my father’s belatedly trying to use on me, that I now belatedly try to use on James. It still doesn’t work, but we Kidman males are nothing if not ridiculously stubborn.
  14. The background music includes far too much Whitney Houston (“I will always love you” was the UK Christmas #1 that year) and, oddly, Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing In The Dark”. Coincidentally, I picked up the Boss’ greatest hits for ten bucks yesterday. Perhaps that’s fate at work.
  15. God, I had terrible skin.

Relatives who want a copy need only ask, naturally. Once I edit out the profanity. Shouldn’t take another fifteen years. I think.
* Well, he is in this video, anyway. Some of it is self-inflicted, though.
** Just most of the swearing. Or, as I put it, in succinct terms, walking outside in the zero degree weather in only a t-shirt, “boing!
boing! boing! It’s boinging cold! boing this…”.
*** I’m sure one relative or another will come along and correct my spelling if it’s wrong.

3 thoughts on “"Look, if you don't get that camera off me, I'm going to kick you right in the *BOING*"”

  1. It’s way too long — about an hour all up. Fascinating, and yet scary at the same time.
    Next project: Our Wedding Video. You’re in that one. Probably less profanity.

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