flanneruk

A totally rubbish piece of research from the BBC women's interest department (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41203240) claims West Oxfordshire is the best place in England for women.

A conclusion so earth-shatteringly obvious, from such useless methodology, it really is the best evidence yet that bullshit beats brains. Or at least that most of the BBC's female journos have a house round here.

If a bomb went off at our Saturday Farmers' Market (never mind Daylesford or Soho Farmhouse), British media would be crippled for years. But no jihadi would dare penetrate into territory so utterly hostile to everything he stands for.

Just as earth-shatteringly obviously, the authorities immediately surrounding it (South Oxfordshire, West Berkshire and Winchester) came numbers 2,3 and 4

Crap research- but great for house prices.

And what's a little truth-bending if it adds a grand to your personal worth?

xcountry

Speaking of bombs going off, what was that about?

IMDonehere

That is the thing about complaining about articles that people would have not have otherwise read-now they have.

Dukey1

And it happened in that oh so civilized and advanced country too.

Dukey1

Or, should I have paraphrased Julian by saying, "DO stop whining; anyone would think you are Italian."

PalenQ

That is the thing about complaining about articles that people would have not have otherwise read-now they have.>

can't get link to open here.

vincenzo32951

If I've found one generality to be true, it's that "Best Places" pieces are total bull$hit.

StCirq

Pal, copy and paste the link into your browser WITHOUT the end parenthesis.

hetismij2

Damn, I moved from south Oxfordshire to totally unsafe semi rural Netherlands.

janisj

>>Pal, copy and paste the link into your browser WITHOUT the end parenthesis.<<

PQ knows that -- - must have forgot . . .

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41203240 is the link

flanner knows about the parens -- must have forgot

For general info since flanneruk isn't the only offender ---- posting <u>url's does not require parentheses</u>. And if it is a habit too hard to break, just leave a space between the end of the url and the trailing paren.

flanneruk

"posting url's does not require parentheses"

But literary politeness does.

The phrase "the BBC women's interest department www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41203240 claims West Oxfordshire" looks absurd. Especially when you type it - because the URL doesn't go blue like it does when on the web.

Almost as absurd as this kind of research.

Mind you: West Oxfordshire is still the best place in the world. And since it's committed to equal opps, that means best for blokes as well.

janisj

>>But literary politeness does. <<

true -- but when was Fodors ever 'polite'?

Best solution is to continue to use parens, but just leave spaces before and after the link. That should cover the literary politeness front.

bvlenci

One ( problem) is that if you're using Android, it insists on closing up the space before the second parenthesis, as it just did after "problem". Same with periods and commas, which also invalidate URLs. I usually put a space-holding letter before the period and then erase the letter.

hetismij2

West Dunbartonshire is apparently the best place in Britain for women.
Given the choice I'd stick with south Oxfordshire - Wantage to be exact. Even though it has changed considerably in the last 34 years it is still the only place I would even vaguely consider living if I were to return to the UK.

thursdaysd

I am considering returning to England. Why Wantage?

Southam

History suggests the best place is Buckingham Palace, given a quirk of birth.

flanneruk

"Why Wantage?"

Me, I can't imagine. The BBC's only so far published edited highlights of the research, essentially limiting itself to the top and bottom 20 local authorities (out of ~330).

Wantage isn't in one of these: its local authority (Vale of the White Horse, locally known as "the Vale") must be in the middling group of 290-odd local authorities. Only parts of south Oxfordshire are in South Oxfordshire.

But thurdaysd's q raises the really interesting issue: what does research like this really tell us?

Like those surveys that claim some no-horse hamlet in New Zealand is the best place for visitors in the world, this one takes a range of criteria, adds known data about locations together, decides some criteria matter more than others, then publishes the rankings.

This report aggregated (for both sexes, except where indicated) known data on:
- Income: average levels for women and the male:female pay ratio
- Housing affordability: average house prices as a % of average local pay
- Claimed personal wellbeing: local women's ranking of how anxious they were and how happy, how satisfied with life nowadays and how worthwhile they believe the things they are doing are
-Safety: known levels of criminality per person
-Education: average women's education levels
-Environment: access to green spaces and levels of most dangerous air pollution
- Culture local women's use of cinemas, art exhibitions, libraries and museums
- Age profile - % of female population over certain ages (included for analysis, not for scoring)
- Employment - local female employment and unemployment
- School quality: proportion of young people going for education after 18, proportion of school pupils expelled and average class size
- Likelihood of isolation: % of women over 65 living alone
- Mortality: Female mortality rate.

The top-scoring English authorities are probably there because they've got lots of countryside, near-zero unemployment, limited traffic (so low air pollution) near-zero crime, outstanding access to museums and libraries, and high levels of women doing jobs (like academe) with relatively equal access for women and near-identical male and female wage levels.

The Vale differs from its idyllic neighbours because it's so near Oxford. So traffic-generated air pollution's high, house prices represent the highest proportion of local salaries in the UK (because Oxford's got a huge number of exceptionally poorly paid people: mostly junior academics), higher crime levels (mostly Saturday night vandalism) - and the self-centred academic population whinge a great deal more about their unhappiness.

As far as I can see, Wantage shares these problems, and scores no better on other things that matter (like zero unemployment, access to nice facilities, decent schools or life expectancy) than its more idyllic neighbours like Woodstock, Dorchester or Pangbourne.

PatrickLondon

>>"Why Wantage?"

Me, I can't imagine. <<

Nor me:
<i>There was a young lady of Wantage
Of whom the Town Clerk took advantage:
The Borough Surveyor
Said "You know you must pay her -
You've totally altered her frontage."</i>

thursdaysd

Thanks for the details, flanner.

I am looking for somewhere I can live without a car, with low crime, lifetime learning opportunities, good hospitals/doctors, good train/coach links to London and housing prices noticeably below London levels. A cathedral would be a bonus, a lot of tourism would be a negative. My sisters live in Reading and Milton Keynes respectively, but neither town particularly attracts me.