Michael Freeman

@Marky146 @AlisonMoyet Wow. Kong Fuzi actually predicted ‘fans’ all those centuries ago. We should listen to him more!

@AlisonMoyet Confuscius once said; artists perform. Fans come from all places. Artist sings- all love the Artist is good. Artist talks politics… artist loses half of fans. Artist bad. Shhh. Be good Artist. No politics good. Love you Alf, always did. I grew up listening to you. Xxx

I’ve lived in such denial. I skirted around it, turned a blind eye and now I’ll be damned. I’ve had enough of pretending. I’m off to google what an Overton Window is and if it comes in double-glazed. Then I’ll likely order some for the downstairs. So…

@SavvySomerset @jk_rowling Period? You know better than others? Arrogant and last word on the subject (that’s what [.] implies)?

Here’s the thing: I was always (and remain) open to persuasion on independence for Scotland. I have close pro-Indy friends who are good, clever, thoughtful people. I’m well aware there was a respectable argument to be made for independence and there still is. I voted against it in 2014 because I believed the inevitable economic destabilisation and upheaval was being seriously underplayed by the SNP, and that the impact would be felt, as it always is, by the poorest and most vulnerable. I still think the SNP had no good answers to serious, good faith questions and Sturgeon offers none in her book. IMO, the SNP was asking us to simply cross our fingers and jump in the belief that myriad complexities would magically resolve themselves. As I said at the time, people like me weren’t the ones who were going to suffer serious injury if the landing turned out to be a lot harder than promised. Did pro-union people behave badly, as well as nationalists? Yes, without a doubt. In any binary contest, you will look around and find a lot of people standing in your camp you don’t have a single thing in common with except on a single yes/no question. There’s a reason, though, that far more nationalists than unionists look back fondly on the run up to the referendum time. Pro-independence politicians were happy to impugn remainers’ motives in very ugly ways, and plenty of elected MPs and MSPs contributed enthusiastically to online toxicity. When people who call a country home and love it are called traitors and Quislings by their own elected representatives for having questions about currency unions and sterlingisation, their feelings about that country inevitably shift. I used to see the Saltire in such a positive way. I felt it belonged to everyone; it was a flag with no negative associations whatsoever. Then 2014 happened and I realised my naivety, because I was told (along with millions of others) that it didn’t belong to me, that I had no right to it, that I was insufficiently good and Scottish to be included beneath it. I know very well those sentiments weren’t shared by everyone in the Yes camp, because, as stated above, I admire and indeed love certain Yessers. The fact remains that a lot of people on the No side came through that referendum with certain illusions about Scotland shredded. Sturgeon sees everything through the prism of identity politics. She assumes all No voters must have been deeply attached to a British identity, but that simply isn’t the case. Lots of us were persuadable, but if the knee jerk response to common sense questions is ‘you’re a unionist traitor, a scaremonger and no true Scot’, don’t be surprised if the questioner becomes sceptical about the inclusive, egalitarian, welcoming utopia independence activists swore we’d be living in once they were in charge.

@fesshole ChatGPT wrote this fess, right?

I run a small tech startup. Was struggling to get second round investment, so we rebranded everything with AI this and AI that. Investors suddenly falling over themselves to give us money. We don't, and never will, use AI for anything in our company or products we sell.

@MatthieuGB ‘Art’ needs a thoughtful definition. The meaning runs deep into the human psyche, so maybe calls for caution in casual use related to anything other than.

Walkthrough the new AI-augmented photoshop, starting the era of assisted images / photos / illustrations. And starting to lower every skills in jobs until everything from reality including videos and 3D become malleable by everyone 🫨😵‍💫 and until the new art forms emerges

@gillburn @fesshole That would be “Wish I wuz…”? Or even “were…”

I earn well over GBP 100k and yet my main responsibilities seem to be correcting the grammar of / formatting slides completed by others. I consider the ability to be competent at both to be a basic minimum standard of the working world, and yet here we are.

New book out today, second in my series of 5 (maybe even more). Two per year. Light and it’s equal partner in our pictures: shadow.

@duckrabbitblog @GettyImages Trying to imagine who and for what reason would want to use this from stock. And Getty’s rationale for offering it. My imagination isn’t up to it.

Photographers must understand it be can be right to take a photograph. But completely wrong to commodify it and sell it openly on a stock library. The photo for sale by @GettyImages shows a decapitated man's head (I removed it from the image).

@duckrabbitblog Good for you!

Sharing my tweets now comes with benefits.

@duckrabbitblog Fantastic story. And congratulations for being the one to see it.

1: 'Chesterton often uses his tweets and company blog to highlight instances of fraud and questionable ethics in documentary photography. “The industry will put it down to CGI and computers and stage a debate about that,” he says. wired.com/story/true-sto…

@duckrabbitblog 'Masterclass'? Heavens.

That choice of image. Seriously?

@stephenwill @JStukka @afneil Tells you only

It’s official: I have resigned as Chairman and Lead Presenter of GB News.

@piersmorgan @Ofcom You’re quite right

Hmmm, ITV have just put out a statement saying I only won the ⁦@Ofcom⁩ case against Princess Pinocchio because my colleagues expressed different opinions to mine. That’s not what the ⁦@Ofcom⁩ report says in its conclusion. I suggest ITV reads it again. 👇👇

@piersmorgan Yes. Terrific. But will convert no-one already commited to woke intolerance.

This is absolutely brilliant. Everyone should read it, especially the insufferable woke brigade. 👇👇 Chimamanda.com chimamanda.com

@piersmorgan Nice one

Might have spared us all a lot of pain if you had.... 🤣

@ElSuyog @DailyMailUK That's politically suspect, I'm afraid. What about the left side? Not to mention the centre...

@DailyMailUK "... oh my co-soilder, can thee protect me, from the bullets that ideological-differing similar kind, are firing from thy right side?? "

Soldiers banned from calling each other 'lads' over fears it could cause offence trib.al/J2AynIL

@piersmorgan Not just journalist...any thinking person.

If any journalist in the world feels comfortable with this, they should be in a different profession. 👇

@AgenderJ @angijones @ReadingsBooks Whaaaat?

@piersmorgan She refused to answer why she found a question (which sounded reasonable) insulting. Hardly worth interviewing.

Don’t lie. Ms Coffey was booked for 8.15am and the interview began at 8.19am. She was kept waiting 4 minutes.

@henk__heijmans @stuartfreedman Outstanding

Chess players on Tsvetnoy Boulevard in Moscow, 1950s - by Nikolay Bobrov, Russian