This is the fun part, because the main inspiration for me to write these guilty pleasure posts was finding three delightful YouTube videos of Stephen Fry talking about his various “guilty pleasures”.

Stephen is best known as an English media personality who has done an enormous variety of work in TV, film, radio, theatre and printed media. He’s also a technology and gadget lover, who was the second person in the UK to own a Mac computer. He had a huge following on Twitter long before Oprah had heard of it, and he does all his own tweeting. He travels all over the world too, and is interested in linguistics and wildlife conservation.

He’s beginning to sound rather like a Scanner, isn’t he? I have no idea whether he’s familiar with Barbara Sher’s work, or her name for people with many interests, but he’s often described as a renaissance man or polymath, which have much the same meaning. You can even join a Facebook group called Stephen Fry: Polymath, Raconteur, Genius that was set up by one of his fans.

So I’d like you to watch these videos and see whether you think he’s a Scanner, and whether his guilty pleasures are anything like yours. They’re from a 2007 BBC TV programme called Stephen Fry: Guilty.

If you enjoyed those and want some more, and you can be in London on 18th October 2009, there’s a Special Audience With Stephen Fry in aid of leukaemia and lymphoma research.

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