Video Filing, Castors, Owl Restoration, Billy Squier

Started the day by making updating the new videos on the Cornutopia Software YouTube channel, then filing the newly converted videos.

Then, fitted castors to my father's chair. It needed a height extension, and we had some spare castors with an M8 thread, so I ordered some M8 rivnuts, and these arrived today. I needed an 11mm drill bit for these; 11mm! This is such an unusual size, most drill bits over 6 go up in twos. I used a 10mm drill an shifted the bit around to enlarge the hole, this worked well. Then glued the rivnuts into place with viscous super-glue (cyanoacrylate). Then screwed in the castors.

After this, worked on the repair and restoration of the owl oil painting started in November. This required thick paint, more like a paste. Oil paint will not gap-fill easily, so I added chalk, an ancient solution. The results were good, this restoration is complete. While working I listened to a new album acquisition, Billy Squier's Don't Say No. I thought I might like it because it's a 1981 album (my favourite year), was produced by Reinhold Mack, and was a hit in America at the time. Billy Squier is pretty much unknown in the UK, but sure enough, I like the album, it's so like the rockier Queen of the era that if Freddie Mercury sang these, people would assume it's an unknown Queen (or at least Brian May) album. There are however some Americanisms in the riffs, bluesy/country sounds, such as the riff in 'Too Daze Gone' which wouldn't be in a British album. It's a very good album, will definitely be an inspiration and remain part of my collection.

In the afternoon, a dash to shops to buy some essentials and important luxuries.

It's time to consider new creations. I must work on the Strawberry painting and on audiobooks. Things feel somewhat cluttered and untidy, but I've made progress here. With each new thing, something old must be cast out too. Sometimes growth is cutting back.

Onwards we charge!

I Seek My Solace

Today, compiled images to send to a gallery, and once done did some work on 'I Seek My Solace Where Love Lies Lost'. I found a branch of dried wood, very mossy and pretty. I sawed this to make a flat base, then cut and glued it to make a gallows for the panel to hang from. Once dry, I'll preserve it all with Paraloid resin.

Then, cut and drilled a piece of lime wood for the painting panel's rear, and drew out the poem. My plan is to gild this. I may need to enhance the lettering with a dark colour.

My gums are aching aching, despite weeks of meticulous cleaning. The problem which became evident in December seems to be no better.

New Year, New Cornutopia Software YouTube Channel

Yesterday, a full day of my annual computer backups and system tidying, which I perform every Dec 31st. This took until 17:00, and was thwarted by the Windows Recovery Drive creator not recognising my new 128Gb USB stick. It worked fine last year for the 64Gb stick (but not with 32Gb, which isn't big enough). This forced me to order another, feeling ripped off. I also received a USB plug, ordered as a twin pack, but this was time limited and it appears that I missed out by a few minutes - also inspiring feelings of being taken advantage of! The Amazon page hums and tums with eyes skywards, showing just one plug, no sign of the twin-pack offer.

Later, a nice evening of board games with Deborah and my parents, and today the day of new starts. I watched 'Letter From An Unknown Woman' by Stefan Zweig, whom I'd read a year or two ago in 'Beware Of Pity'; a true romantic in the mould of Goethe.

Then a look a new goals, and I decided to create a new YouTube channel for Cornutopia Software, to separate out the 20 or 30 gaming videos from my artworks channel. My visual art really needs a separate channel. This work involves recompiling all of these videos and updating all of the YouTube text, as well as creation of the channel livery. I should manage it by the end of today.

Christmas, Where Love Lies Lost

A quiet Christmas day with my parents and Deborah, Boxing Day spent visiting a few shops. I bought some leather gloves and some perfume shaped like a gold bar, which will make me feel rich and probably increase prosperity by psychological action. In the evening, a second Christmas meal cooked with great élan by Deborah. A former professional chef, her skills are as useful as they are enjoyable. On the 27th we went to Knutsford for the weekend, visited Elizabeth Gaskell's grave and several charity shops. We went into the Oil Art Advisory gallery and had a wonderfully warm welcome, and inspirational talk and browse at the art. The entire place looked beautiful, it was certainly something beyond a high street gallery.

We returned home to spend a few hours with my brother and his partner, and a board game in which we had to make objects from wooden pixels to be guessed by other players.

The lack of normal activity has been causing me stress, too little creativity, too much disorder, and no routine. I feel I need to throw lots away. Last night I designed a new artwork which continued one I started in summer, a strawberry with a hole in the canvas so that it can hang. I'll make a gallows for it. I came up with a title, first 'Where Love Lies Lost', then 'I Seek My Solace Where Love Lies Lost', then expanded these lines into a poem, which will be part of the artwork:

I seek my solace
Where love lies lost
I find no comfort
Where love lives most
That which I have
Lends me no pleasure
That which I lack
Extends forever

This week, work on art organisation, and archiving the year's activities. Tomorrow, my annual computer backup and clean, which will take all day.

Christmas Duties, Renamer v110

Spent yesterday and today working on end of year backups and Christmas duties. I've updated my ancient program simply called 'Renamer', which is a batch find/replace program, useful because the find and replace text are in separate text files, allowing replaces of paragraphs. I've used it a lot for website updates over the years.

Yesterday and today I added a feature to batch add a 'header' file, a 'footer', and text to every end-of-line. This makes it ideal for converting a simple poem into a fully formatted HTML page in a blink.

Lots of end of year filing is due. In between, much is being absorbed and new ideas are forming.

Phone 4, Christmas Admin, and Annual Music Streams

Today, set up my 4th new (dumb) phone of 2025, all of the others were buggy or just didn't work as advertised. The returning process for the last one took many hours today. Plus, wrapped the last of my Christmas gifts, and printed my 2026 calendar, which I now create myself. This allows me to use individual A4 sheets (much easier to manipulate and write on), and set my personal custom dates.

All day has taken this.

Nastee Chapel reported £40 of CD sales of Christmas Tails and donated the whole sum, taking the total over the final total for the Snow Business.

I looked at my music stats for 2025 and noted that my most popular Christmas song is 'Away from Her Manger' (good, this is for me my best) in South Korea. My overall most popular song is 'Back When It All Began' from Secret Electric Sorcery; both of these on TikTok, the music was probably in the background of some user-created video. These stats often lag months behind and I've not been a year with my new distributor yet, so all of the stats are loose guidance. No sales of even one track, just many fragments across streaming and social platforms.

I still feel that everything I've done is half as good as it could be, as it should be, and the effort required to remaster and polish everything seems immense; but, I'll keep working at it each day, and hopefully keep improving (which, if I succeed, will lead to similar feelings for all eternity; growth in excellence necessarily makes the past look shoddy).

Onwards we stride. Today, our rock feels a little bigger but a little lighter.

Thoughts on AI, On Cloud Hill

The final videos without lyrics to The Dusty Mirror were uploaded yesterday.

I took a look at some AI video tools and I suddenly felt that doing anything at all with AI would be toxic, as toxic as an association with Jeffrey Epstein or Jimmy Savile or Gary Glitter, or anything else in the sphere of the 'cancelled'. AI has elements of a drug. Song generation AI has huge appeal to those who have no musical ability, and video generation AI has appeal to those with no video capability, but perhaps one day those who use it will gain ability, and on that day they'll declare 'But guys! I can do it myself now!' but it will be too late. The 'fans' who prefer AI wouldn't want the 'real creations' and those who disliked them would not touch someone tainted by AI. The toxicity will always be there, it's like a drug in this respect, a stigma, not with respect to addiction.

I became an artist partly as a rebellion against my computer background, to avoid the digital and its falseness, fake-ness and rigidity. I've not, to date, used AI (in music, video, chat or anything else, though yes, I'd happily take credit for my 2014 album by Oldfield 1 Art By Machine as being an 'AI creation', composed using random means and a program of my own design; but this is not what most people consider AI today, that is ChatGPT-style generative AI). As AI becomes popular I'm increasingly interested in that which is not-AI, the hand made, the ersatz, and human. This is a sort of digital 'arts and crafts' movement, the arts movement from the late 19th century which emerged as a reaction to the industrial revolution. A key part of my philosophy as an artist is to do what others don't, or won't, or can't.

Art is about expressing yourself, our human selves. AI can help, but tools of any sort can get in the way of this expression. 2025 AI is more than a tool, it's more like a collaborator, and there's a difference between what we as artists want and what a (more able) collaborator suggests and we later accept. In 20th century music such things happened often, when a young star was guided (or misguided) by record companies, producers, peers, to create their sort of sound. Those artists ended up lost, rejected, dumped. I remember the Milli Vanilli controversy, where the artist didn't sing on their track, or the similar reaction to The Monkees, when accused of not playing their instruments. The taint of AI to artist will, I suspect, be the same.

This commentary already feels old. AI will rapidly change, and perhaps become a brilliant and able collaborator, but like collaborating with any genius artist, the art he/she/it makes will be his/hers/its own. If Mozart were a slave to the exact requirements ('prompts') of his patron, would Mozart or the patron be the artist? Artists have faced this exact problem for centuries, and the artists who have proven to be the best are those who damn their patrons and do as they will.

Today is the day of the winter solstice, and we've determined to visit some ancient standing stones, The Bridestones. These stones as a monument, once tomb, are over 4000 years old, though achingly sadly wrecked in the 19th century. They sit on Cloud Hill, Congleton, and I wrote this poem for the occasion which I'll read there today.

On Cloud Hill

On Cloud Hill to the sky I reach
With eyes of glassy youth and bright
I sigh for that which bones can't teach
For broken here these bones alight

We here at winter's lowest stroke
Make prayers with fleeting voice and tone
These gods are dead, yet speak their joke
From corpses of eternal stone

The season's arc is sliced in amber
Afire for souls of shiv'ring awe
The copper on this skin of sand
Will reach this mark ten thousand more

These things will look up, cold and still
Long after we turn cloud to hill

Videos Part 2, First BBC Radio Play, Snowflake Premiere

Another full day of video conversion, recompiling all of my Violet Night and Dusty Mirror videos and removing the subtitle layer. The Violet Night ones were completed by the afternoon; Dusty is half complete. This requires a lot of tedious and exacting text work, and lots of waiting around for the computer to convert.

In between I've listened to Freddie Mercury's My Bad Guy, a great album, at least half of it is brilliant, and half not so. I love that he dedicated it to his cat, something I've done with some of my music!

I forgot to mention that I've had a royalty for my first ever play on BBC Radio. BBC Radio 6 played 'Pandora' from Bites Of Greatness at some point last year, but I've only just noticed. I've no idea in what context. Of course now, I consider my vocal music my best, even if my voice is still growing month by month. Everything recorded so far sounds inferior to anything I could do today. I've come a long way, but I have a long way yet to go in this regard. My many remasters are important for this reason. The 2026 Modern Game remaster is twice as good as the last version, and that was merely 2022.

Tonight is the premiere of the new video to 'Will You Be My Snowflake?'. I'll online on my YouTube Music Channel for it at 7pm.