Then again, we all know this don't we?

[Stu]

France has been voted the best place to live in a survey carried out by International Living magazine.

The UK was joint 37th!

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_headlin ... _page.html

[Mountain Goat]

Interesting, but was it a reader survey or produced by the magazine internally? Also, which country is the mag. published? If it was a reader survey then nationality of readers would be very relevant.

MG

[Alan Knighting]

France has been voted the best place to live in a survey carried out by International Living magazine.

The UK was joint 37th!

The only person truly qualified to answer that question is someone who has lived in every country of the world. Since that person probably doesn’t exist the responses are likely to be based on prejudice. In other word, the survey is meaningless.

If the survey had asked “Based on your personal experience which country is the best place to live?� the survey might have some meaning.

More pertinent questions might be “How many Brits have moved to France?� or “How many Brits have moved to Spain?� or “How many French have moved to the UK?� or “How many Spaniards have moved to the UK?� An even more pertinent question might be “Why?�

I moved from the UK to France and I had my reasons. Those reasons don’t necessarily apply to anyone else but they were persuasive reasons – for me. My reasons were unarguably right for me but they may be completely wrong for someone else.

Alan

[Mountain Goat]

Looking at their website, looks as though they're published in Ireland.

They've also got a Forum - maybe we could unleash ourselves on an unsuspecting audience?

MG

[e-richard]

This is not a survey.

Its a review by International Living magazine using their own criteria (presumably weighted in some way to give more importance to some issues) and thus it is valid - for what it is. The "votes" were cast by the magazine editors/writers and not by the public who live in these countries.

So by all means accept it as a viewpoint from International Living magazine using their specific definitions of what makes a "good country", but a representative survey it is not.

International Living magazine judged countries on their cost of living, culture and leisure, economy, environment, freedom, health, infrastructure, safety and risk, and climate.