A few recent stories about the Gaussian free field

 In the first story we wonder about the ubiquity of the free field and look at a few characterisation theorems. In the second story we discuss the mutually benefiting relationship between the discrete free field and the O(N) spin model. Finally, in a third story we see how twisted/orbifold free fields, CLE_4 and Brownian loop soup come together to help describe correlation functions of the Ashkin-Teller model.