One of the issues that can afflict LETS stems from those who seek to measure their time in ££££ rather than LETS but here there is no discrimination. Those that insist on ascribing a monetary ‘value’ to their time and effort are explanations the minum wage as a practise reference. The only ££££ likely to be involved are the refund of travelling expenses e.g. bus fares or petrol/diesel money and the cost of any materials used for the task.

LETS is not about making money – there are plenty of commercial media available for skill selling starting from the corner shop window card to the sponsorship of a premier league football team. I f you do use your skills to make ££££ then LETS might be a source of references of happy customers to add to your portfolio but nothing beyond that – it is not a free advertising medium and I suspect that any attempt to use it as such will be deprecated by other members.

Frome LETS will be based on the software provided by http://localexchange.org.uk/ where you will find links to other LETS schemes in the UK. A scheme close to Frome is http://www.salisburylets.org.uk/: this website contains good explanations of how LETS works in practise.

The Frome scheme will start with

Launch meeting at a place and time yet to be determined
An agreement for regular social/business meetings thenafter
Annual subscription £5.00, paid in ££££ on joining and on the annual renewal date of 1 January
Currency name “Frome(s)”

A couple of things to think about before you join, what can you do i.e. what will you be offering and what will you be wanting? Don’t be shy about what you can offering, something that might appear to be too trivial to mention might be something that somebody out there might be in desperate need of, for things you want to be done, you will not know until you ask!

For a start I think that he is very bright and arguably the Oscar Wilde of our times. He succeeds in expressing himself in English whatever the medium and knows a lot of stuff and I suspect/hope that he takes the trouble to find out about a subject before he utters forth.

He is very funny without the need to put others down or patronise to make a point. Probably capable of acerbic wit but does not need to display his erudition for all to admire. Mr Fry’s use of the language is humbling: I have yet to hear him use a word incorrectly although he isn’t shy to coin a newism if that is what is needed to make the point. My personal favourite is “earworm” lifted from the German “Ohrwurm” which is far more communicative than any previously existing English circumlocution.

I would like to meet him to confirm to myself that he really is as nice as his TV/radio personae suggest. I suspect that he is a friend in deed to those to whom he is close.

I share his interest in new technology; writing as a retired technologist, I assert that, with money no object, a predilection for Apple products is simple common sense. A computer is after all just a device for communication and part of the Steve Jobs legacy is the provision of global products that facilitate the process.

Hagiography aside, Mr Fry is a hero in the mental health business. I have watched “The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive” many times and thank him for his role helping to explode some of the myths around the subject of mental illness and its consequences for the sufferer and those around him or her. Successful and prosperous people do not need to reveal so much of themselves for personal gain. Maybe they achieve some sort of cathartic release but that does not matter. Far more significant is the fact that he articulates the condition to a broad audience and thus helps the cause of greater general awareness and understanding of all metal health illness.

Before he came out as a manic depressive (the term I prefer because it is more descriptive in everyday English then the term bipolar with its qualifying numbers which are doubtless helpful to the trade that must be seen to be scientific), Stephen Fry wrote some for me life-changing words about depression. I read them on the Samaritans website in 2001 and at last helped me begin to understand what had been wrong with me for so long. I would like to meet the man behind the words essentially to say thank you for his courage with the self-exposure that has brought succour to very many.
The principal reason for wanting to meet Stephen Fry is that I would love to meet someone with whom I could converse, with someone who does not think in one straight line. He is one of life’s raconteurs but he also knows hot to listen to people: Stephen Fry in America showed an expert listener in action where he met and conversed with many different people.