Introductory chapter

SEL = “Système d’échange local” means LETS or “Local Exchange and Trading System” in English.

            What is it about? To update an old tradition.

            How? By means of data processing. 

            To do what? To improve everyday life.

            Here is for the content.

            Let us see for the form.

            This book was created like a newspaper. No sensationals, no enigmatic situations and transcendental messages. Everyday life’s simple scenarios with women and men like you and me.

            Do not be surprised by the excessive use of the auxiliaries “to be” and “to have”. No emphatic turns of phrase, no constructions of snobbish sentences and no erudite paraphrases. I wrote as I speak to you: sincerely and spontaneously. At a time where you are regarded as suspect if you do not make spelling mistakes, where you pass for a degenerate if you do not know slang, where the correct expression of the English language becomes the aristocrats’ prerogative, I do not see why I would work myself to make you “migrainous” grammatical constructions.

May I advise you: in the event of dissension, read no further.