clock that does all I need

programming is no problem - I am well up the learning curve on VBA and I reckon it will only take about 100 lines of code - most of the boring stuff is done by Excel like lists and time comparison.

I have it saying messages and displaying pics. the content thereof is not of my choosing.

the rest is colour etc so that it mirrors the time of day and doesn't glare at night.

Webcam will wait. Still looking for the laptop - it has to fold flat to stick on the wall and a lot of them go to 10 or 15 degrees. And I need to switch off the HDD in VBA at night etc.
Anyway it is doable - what it achieves is another matter.