Hardware or Software ?….

Posted on December 23, 2025 by Guthlac

As the few readers who have paid any attention will know I produce a significant of ‘art’ using an iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and app Procreate. One the years I have used this combination to produce some of my better pieces (other views may vary). However, over the past couple of months I have noticed that I don’t seem able to make anything of the standard I did before. Somewhere along my journey I appeared to have jettisoned some part of what talent I might possess.

In a twisted inversion of the nature/nurture conundrum: Its not me its you. To add a new layer of complexity Apple introduced iPad OS 26.x in the middle of this existential crises (artistic hyperbole you may well think, probably correctly) which lead me to question whether it was me or the software? Still my problems with material produced using Procreate/Apple Pencil etc continued.

Then yet another possible solution came to mind: how about changing the tip on the Apple Pencil? The pencil is nearly 5 years old so it won’t hurt. Next problem where is the spare tip that comes with the pencil? Thankfully, my ever efficient wife came to the rescue and quickly found the tip. It seems to have made a significant difference and I have gained most of the control of the medium I had before. (1)

I’m still not sure it is exactly the same feel that I had before iPad OS 26.x and conspiratorial side of my personality suggests that this is Apple forcing me too replace my aging and very well used iPad Pro. That is another story.

However, at the moment I can say with no confidence that it was the hardware – not me… ish.

What will my next excuse be when I continue to produce crap (Again your mileage may vary)? The options are as limitless as talent is limiting.

Fn

(1) Out of interest I have just asked Google AI how frequently should the tip be replaced? The answer as of the time of publishing this post was:

Apple Pencil tips can last from a few months to several years, depending heavily on usage and screen protector type, with heavy users on matte/paper-like protectors needing replacements every few months, while light users on glass screens might go years, but generally, replacing every 1-2 years is a good rule of thumb, watch for jaggedness, reduced smoothness, or screen unresponsiveness to know it’s time.

So let that be a lesson for all of you.

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15:03 hrs…

Posted on December 21, 2025 by Guthlac

This morning at sunrise a number of people banged drums, danced, pranced and pretend they knew what the hell happened at Stonehenge 3000 + years ago. (Spoiler Alert: – nobody knows for certain.) Yes winter solstice is here again. Yippee??

According to the BBC the solstice actually happens at 15:03 hrs (local time). I’m sure that some people, were they ever to find this mindless nonsense would huff about the BBC as a reliable source. Well I’m British and I still believe the BBC on facts like this. You may not but I do.

I’m sure that we will get many more damp, gray days like today. The good thing is that every day after today will be getting one day longer. One more day towards warmth and sunshine you can enjoy without having a warm coat on.

Oh and BTW it is the fourth Sunday of Advent which Marks the final week before Christmas, emphasizing hope, peace, joy, and love. Well that is what the great secular god Google AI tells me. Just in case anyone has forgotten: Christmas is a religious festival. Just thought I would mention it.

Does anyone bang drums and prance around the data centres where Google AI is said to inhabit?

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Good News Everyone…

Posted on December 20, 2025 by Guthlac

It looks like I am going to survive! Another scrap with an uncertain future. I fight to live another day or something like that. (1)

Fn

(1). AI is completely nonsensical. I asked co pilot to rewrite ‘I fight to live another day’ and this is what it came up with:

The phrase “I fight to live another day or something like that” expresses a sense of perseverance or determination to keep going despite challenges. It suggests that the speaker is striving to overcome obstacles, with the hope or intention of surviving and facing whatever comes next. The casual ending “or something like that” implies a degree of uncertainty or informality, as if the speaker is not entirely sure of their purpose but knows they want to keep moving forward.

So there you have it. An A.I. appraisal of the utterings on this page. I’ll let you contemplate any meaning it might have.

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Cold Stopped Play….

Posted on December 19, 2025 by Guthlac

Just what anyone needs…with Christmas less than a week away. I’ve got a cold. My wife is giving me knowing looks but she just doesn’t understand. We men really do need to mope around bemoaning our lot. It is in the DNA. I’m sure I read that somewhere on the internet. So it must be true.

All I’m fit for is some light sketching. I even missed the works Christmas outing yesterday (private joke). So I must be at death’s door.

I think the best thing do is to get a cup of coffee and a mince pie – for medicinal purpose you understand.

How will I survive?

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What we leave behind…

Posted on December 15, 2025 by Guthlac

We are the first generation that may well be known far better than almost all of the people that walked on this planet before us. Yes we have some idea as to what Henry 8th did. We also have some idea what he might have looked like. But when you gather every little bit of primary source data about the man it is likely to amount to a hill of beans compared to accumulated nonsense we posted about our lives. (Irony accepted).

Of course it is a very reasonable observation that there is an open question whether any of our cloud lives will survive anything as long as the end of the century let alone 500 years. If it does what story will it tell to the people of the future. How will they judge these years of increasing uncertainty as all around us the environment changes in ways that are a lot less sympathetic to leading what we would now consider to be a comfortable life.

We will never know.

So should anyone actually read this 500 years in the future – well Hi. Please don’t judge us too harshly for the sins we have committed. If, however, you are as judgmental as we are then I guess we will get everything we deserve.

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A Land of Vistas…

Posted on December 11, 2025 by Guthlac

This morning I listened to a podcast where a man claimed that he still understood the country of his birth whilst living in another country. When challenged about this he had a one word explanation: Aircraft.

Now I have no idea how realistic it is to claim such an understanding. What I know is this: if you don’t engage with a place daily, you slowly stop understanding it. Things change. Changes, that had you still been living there, you might not have noticed. Coming back from time to time you would definitely notice them in a way you wouldn’t have in the past. It is at moments like this you start to realise that you are no longer of that place. The place may have deep roots buried in your soul. But you no longer live there. You have moved on.

I have noticed something during my travels through the lands of North West Leicestershire. It is a land of vistas. The carboniferous and Triassic bedrock has been shaped by countless metres of thick ice slowly flowing through the ice ages of the last 12 million or so years. This same ice has worn the once majestic pre Cambrian mountains into more lyric hills. Yet Bardon Hill still dominates.

Today this unremarked part of England is really no more than a dormitory for the larger conurbations to the north and south. Gone is the deep familiar accent with its middle English pronunciations. The great vowel shift is something that happened elsewhere. It is now replaced, certainly in the south, by the unmistakable accent of the West Midlands. Change happens.

In not too many years there will be no one left to remember. Such is the fate of the past.

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Passing the Time of Day…

Posted on December 10, 2025 by Guthlac

Cock a Doodle do…oink oink….

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Welcome To…

Posted on December 9, 2025 by Guthlac

The longer one hangs onto this crazy third rock from the sun the stranger things you see. It is probably a statistical anomaly. An infinite number of whatever trying to make a living. Something like that.

Yesterday was certainly one of the stranger things I’ve seen. We went out for lunch, as we old age pensioners do from time to time. As I turned onto the farm where the restaurant is situated I was greeted by…well a T.Rex. There are many things wrong with this site. Perhaps the most geeky is that even in its pomp T.Rex never walked over this land. We are closer to the T.Rex in geological time than the rocks it was standing on. I told you this was a bit geeky.

Of course such geological niceties didn’t bother Michael Crichton when he wrote the original book that spawned the model in the middle distance. Crichton’s influence on the day hadn’t finished.

Near to the restaurant there was a very sad looking Wild West recreation. I was going to type Westworld but somehow I don’t see Dolores Abernathy riding into this particular town. I suspect when the set is dressed up, it may well look a whole lot better than on a damp, dull winter’s day. The people that own and run Cattows are nothing if not inventive.

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Puzzling…

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Guthlac

What do you get when you cross the latest camera technology with 50 year old lenses? Strained eyes for one thing. Also a lot of fun. Well fun if you enjoy taking photographs that is. I suspect most of the people out there would also consider you just a little bit odd. Well that is alright as I suspect that has always been most people’s view of me.

This isn’t the first time I have attached my old Canon lenses to a modern Sony body. The difference this time is that the sensor is 61 MPixels. How would the lenses cope with such resolution. The truth is they were fine. Unfortunately, with no auto focus, my eyes had to do all the heavy lifting. Things I thought were sharp weren’t always. Old lens, very old eyes.

Still, I think the photos work. Perhaps this is the start of a lovely new relationship? Perhaps. It hasn’t worked out that way in the past.

PS. I’ve just searched through the blog for instances of me using these lenses. One of the post had perhaps the most poignant Post Script:

….just to prove how fickle I am…I am looking forward to the Photography Show next month at the NEC outside Birmingham…

The date of this blog was 21st February 2020…I never did get to the NEC!

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Winter from Afar…

Posted on December 5, 2025 by Guthlac

The alarm fades, and I rise slowly, the chill of winter lingering in the air. Pulling back the curtains, the world outside greets me with a quiet brilliance. Frost clings to every branch, turning the trees into delicate sculptures of silver and white.

The rooftops shimmer under a pale sun, its light stretching gently across the horizon, promising warmth yet holding the crisp bite of morning. Breath curls like smoke in the stillness, and the garden sparkles as though dusted with diamonds. There’s a hush, a calm that feels almost sacred, broken only by the distant call of a bird braving the cold. In that moment, the day feels new, pure, and full of possibility.

I linger at the window, savouring the beauty of winter’s touch, before stepping forward into the promise of this bright, frosty dawn.

Co-Pilot 5th December 2025

Funny old world. It must have been a frosty morning 9 years ago when I captured these two images. I can say with as much certainty as my addled brain can muster, I wasn’t thinking about how an A.I. program would describe the day. But here we are nine years later. A quick prompt to co-pilot and bang 150 words of AI fantasy. Is it slop? No. Is it me? Defiantly not.

Possibly the funniest thing about this is that the WordPress AI is having hissy fits over the text.

Welcome to a frosty Friday morning.

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