Tom Freeman

@tomfreeman.bsky.social

2399 Followers 179 Following

Occasional editor and writer. Purveyor of half-baked opinions. Intermittently able to make my nieces laugh. (SnoozeInBrief on Twitter) My blog on usage, editing and suchlike: https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com

BBC chart showing the cumulative number of people crossing the Channel in small boats from January to December, with different lines for each of the last 5 years.
Happy bus/sad bus meme. On the happy side, "Mahmood isn't going to be chancellor". On the sad side, "Mahmood is still home secretary".
Headline: "Who is the PM's wife, Marie-France van Heel?"
Andy Burnham shaking King Charles's hand, with Donald Trump from the world Cup award photo pasted onto the edge.
Chart showing the number of living former UK prime ministers, from 1721 to 2026. Until recently, the number had never been higher than 5, but since 2016 it has shot up from 3 to 9.
Today's weather: temperature range from 11C to 23C.
Screenshot of BBC website, link saying "Experience this match in 3D".
Me kneeling on a river bank next to a swan who is wrapped up in a special swan jacket that stops him thrashing around.
The documents do not contain any evidence of electoral fraud. Nor do they prove that government officials had tried to suppress information about foreign interference. The president is undermining trust in the voting system before crucial midterm elections in November, in which Republicans are facing the prospect of losing control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate."
Kelly Macdonald as Diane in Trainspotting, downing two drinks being held by a hapless guy and then walking off
Distracted boyfriend meme: "everyone" is staring at "who should the next chancellor be?" and ignoring "what should the next chancellor do?"
Headline: "England close in on immortality with biggest match since 1966", but the word "match" is crossed out and the words "advances in telomere research" added.
Headline: "Giving nature a say: why Scottish marine scientists appointed the ocean to their board" Subheading: "As the rights of nature are increasingly being recognised, the Scottish Association for Marine Science is the latest organisation to make the ocean a trustee"
My hand holding a small dark chocolate Toblerone
Google AI overview from a search for "odyssey release date uk": "Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was released in UK cinemas on Friday, 17 July 2026, with some premium format and midnight preview screenings beginning on Thursday, 16 July 2026. The film is widely available across the country"
You let Dougal do a funeral?
How long has it been since you’ve seen the original “Jurassic Park”? SAM NEILL The last time I watched it in its totality was sitting beside Princess Di at Leicester Square at the London opening. On the other side of me was my son Tim — he was 11 and completely swept away by it, but about the time the T-Rex turns up, Tim started to fart. And the draft was drifting across me to royalty! I spent the whole film in a muck sweat, thinking, “Princess Di is being exposed to the horrors of a little boy’s fart, but she’s going to think it’s me. I am going to be subliminally blamed for my son’s crimes, and I don’t think she’ll talk to me afterwards.” But she was well brought up and never mentioned it. JEFF GOLDBLUM I love that story, Sam. I’ve heard him tell that a couple of times, and it’s just amazing the lengths that he will go to still blame the boy.
Goodness gracious what is that It’s Mr. Pugwash my black cat Good gracious are there others? Yes indeed my cat Carruthers!
Count Binface on Newsnight. Superimposed is the caption: "I am tired of Earth. These people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives."
London skyline prominently featuring St Paul's cathedral, above which is a clear blue sky and a Goodyear zeppelin
Count von Count, from Sesame Street, in Oscar the Grouch's bin
From Wikipedia: The 1982 American theatrical released by the studio included the "happy ending" as well as the addition of Harrison Ford's voiceover.[1] Although several different versions of the script had included a narration of some sort to clarify the narrative, Harrison Ford and Ridley Scott had decided to add filmed scenes to provide the information. Financiers rewrote and inserted narration during post-production after test audience members indicated difficulty understanding the film. Scott did not have final cut privilege for the version released to cinemas.[6] Ford said in 1999, "I contested it mightily at the time. It was not an organic part of the film".[7] It has been suggested that Ford intentionally performed the voice-over badly, in the hope it would not be used.[1] In a 2002 interview with Playboy, he said, "I delivered it to the best of my ability, given that I had no input. I never thought they'd use it. But I didn't try and sandbag it. It was simply bad narration".[8] The "Happy Ending" refers to the scene after Deckard and Rachael leave the apartment. Gaff spares Rachael's life, allowing her and Deckard to escape the nauseating confines of Los Angeles. They drive away into a natural landscape, and Deckard's voice-over narrative explains that Gaff's words ("It's too bad she won't live. But then again who does?") do not ring true, since Rachael does not have the four-year limit of the other replicants.[9]
View looking along the river (taken from a small footpath over it), showing the swans and their five cygnets gently swimming along towards us. It's the same view as in the quoted post, but the cygnets are now quite a bit bigger.
Colour-coded map of the UK. Zone 1 is London. Zone 2 is the surrounding 70 miles or so, including Kent, Cambs, Oxon and most of Hampshire. Zone 3 runs from Isle of Wight to Dorset to Hereford to Lincs to Suffolk. Zone 4 takes us to Devon, east Wales, Lancs and Yorkshire. Zone 5 is Cornwall, almost all of west Wales and the rest of northern England. Zone 6 is Anglesey, Man, the southern half of Scotland and the area of Northern Ireland around Belfast. Beyond that, zone 7.
Photo of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" tea and coffee shop on Wandsworth Road in 1909. From: https://www.londonpicturearchive.org.uk/view-item?i=126422&WINID=1783007610366
My hand holding the book The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. It's very thick.
The start of Tom Cruise's Wikipedia page, revealing that his nemesis actually "Thomas Cruise Mapother IV"
"It is funded primarily by reallocating budget from across government departments, with £10.3bn identified now. A further £4.7bn over four years will be confirmed at Budget 2026, in a fair and balanced way."
Me standing on a stage at a lectern, talking about grammar, because I'm so damn cool
Drawing of a hydra