Grendel

15th January, 2025 - I had recently finished reading John Gardner's 1971 book: "Grendel" when the desire came over me to write something in a similar vein. I cast around for a suitable subject and decided to make it autobiographical. Yes, for the purposes of this work, I am Grendel!

It is written in poetic style in 9 short chapters and each chapter contains a poem and two pictures generated by Imagen 3. These poems are of various meters and rhyming schemes. Some are from my songs and some are in alliterative verse, as the original "Beowulf" was. Check it out!

Mr Mars' Constellations

24th December, 2024 - Way back in 2007 I began mastering my father's telescope and learning the basics of amateur astronomy. One of the first things you must do when dipping your toe into that water is to learn the constellations. I very quickly decided that they were garbage since only a few actually looked like anything, so I resolved to fix that problem and redesign the entire set for both hemispheres.

I did most of the job around that time and it was a lot of fun but I didn't quite finish it and I didn't produce proper computer graphical maps. I left it on the back burner until a month or so ago when I kicked myself into gear and finished the job. Finally after 5,000 years we have star maps of workable constellations, based on everyday animals and objects. Check it out!

My new constellations come with star maps for the northern and southern hemispheres and a table of the constellations with details on each, including the names of their most notable stars.

A Scientist's Genesis

5th June, 2024 - Way back in 2012 I had the idea to write a comic in the style of 1970s Dr Strange about God creating everything, BUT, not by waving a magic wand. NO! God chooses the laws of the universe that he creates but then He MUST OBEY those laws! No cheating!

I wrote the first chapter and then shelved the project as I had no simple way to produce the art work. Then in 2024 with the outbreak of truly amazing AIs I saw the opportunity to get the job done quickly for free using CoPilot and DALL.E 3 and I was away!

I got cracking on the other chapters, oversaw the artwork generation and set up the necessary web pages. Check it out!

It's a great story, the artwork is incredible and the science is as accurate and up to date as I could make it. There are even humour and irony scattered through it. Better than the original Bible for sure! And you can even learn some advanced science just by reading it!

"Martian Cookery" YouTube channel goes live!

10th January, 2024 - After seeing the power and potential of YouTube and enjoying the process of making "Martian Country Live" clips I decided to try my hand at a cooking channel and Martian Cookery was born!

Cooking is something I do a lot of and I have made many dishes from different cuisines and invented numerous recipes myself. Most of my other areas of expertise are represented on my website so why not cooking?

I keep it simple but not quite as simple as my live music clips. Some editing is required and you do need a second camera for the closeups, however I kept it as natural as possible. Only one take and generally no script. I show the entire process from start to tasting. If it's too slow for some people, too bad. The only time missing is the cooking time, when nothing is happening.

"Martian Country Live" YouTube channel goes live!

14th November, 2022 - On the way home from Queensland after buying a caravan I stopped at Cunnamulla and while I was there I thought: "Why not make a video of me doing Cunnamulla Fella in front of the town's iconic statue?"

I had no proper microphone and no camera tripod and had no idea what I was doing but I mucked around with a table and some chocks to get the camera facing the right way, I pressed record and did 3 takes.

I had no video editing software so I did no editing but simply picked the best take and uploaded it to my "RedPlanetIndustriesAustralia" YouTube account. I told the lady who owned the caravan park what I had done and in 2 days I had more views from this throwaway job that took just 2 hours than I had for all trouble, time and money that I spent on "The Death Of Franz Schubert".

So I decided to make a thing of it and Martian Country Live was born!

My second piano album has been released!

14th August, 2022 - Less than 2 years ago I first heard Franz Schubert's immortal "String Quintet in C Major D. 956." I was immediately smitten with the work and set about adapting it for solo piano. I finished my version in March this year and gave it to Nicholas Young to learn as he had done such a good job on my first piano album.

Nick and I went into Move Records on 28th and 29th of June and we recorded and videoed the entire album. The audio was released to the web via SongTradr on 17th July and the video followed a few weeks later on RPI's YouTube channel.

I have prepared a release page for the album where you can stream it in your preferred manner here. It also provides some background and contains all you need to dip your toes into it.

I commend it to you all! Excelsior!

My first piano album has been released!

6th January, 2022 - I have been playing a lot of piano during the last 5 years, more than any other instrument and I had noticed that my standard had improved considerably. I had also been writing and arranging a lot of piano music and it is not surprising that in mid 2021 I had the idea of compiling an album of my piano works. My performance standard was not good enough for a professional recording so I hired Melbourne based classical pianist Nicholas Young to do the playing. I booked 2 days at Move Records and we went in a recorded and videoed the entire album of 12 tracks.

After being mucked around by the idiots at CD Baby I was not able to get the album released by Christmas 2021 but SongTradr were far more professional and thanks to them I finally got the album out today!

You can watch the videos on YouTube and you can also stream or purchase the album on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and numerous other digital music streamers, just search for "The View from Phobos".

I have also prepared a release page for the album here. It contains all you need to dip your toes into it.

I commend it to you all! Excelsior!

Piano & vocal arrangements for ALL LOTR songs complete

September 27, 2020 - In 2019 I set the second half of Tolkien's songs from the Lord Of The Rings to music. As mentioned in my LOTR section I have now done ALL of the songs from the books. (44 in my setting.) To my knowledge there are only 2 others who can say that.

It is one thing to set words to music, producing a lead sheet giving them melody, harmony and rhythm. This is the essential framework of the song but it is quite another thing however, to produce a complete arrangement of that song for given instruments. It takes a long time to do full orchestral arrangements and although I set the first of the songs that way and although I intend to do the same for the second tranche, for the moment I decided to produce the simplest arrangement ie piano and voice.

This might sound simple but believe me: it isn't. It took a long and sustained effort but the job is done and all the songs can now be performed in a simple setting by any quality classical musicians.

Donations are now possible!

May 9, 2019 - I have never made any money from my site to this time but since I don't have a regular job, it has always been my intention to make money from my ideas in some way. For the time being any monetization of my work will be limited to voluntary donations however I intend to encourage contributions in the future for certain specific downloads. More on this later...

Now that I have my own company which has its own financial structure and bank accounts I can now accept donations via PayPal. If you wish to donate you can click the button at the top of the page or go to my PayPal site.

Red Planet Industries is open for business!

July 18, 2018 - It has taken many years but I have finally got around to putting my intellectual property onto a proper business footing. I have formed a company called Red Planet Industries Pty. Ltd. (Australia) and assigned it all my copyrights. It will manage and foster my works and will continue to operate after I am dead.

News bulletins from previous years may be viewed here.

Contact information may be found here.