Today's lunchtime blog reading ended up looking at a load of comparisons between countries, and there was one list that really didn't make much sense. It was a list of most expensive countries, and they claimed that the Economist was the source, but I couldn't dig out the original numbers, so I just ripped off the InternationalLiving.com list -

So, France is more expensive than Britain? At what? So far the only thing that's really hurt financially have been taxes and beer, although the taxes aren't that much worse than Britain (well, they might be if I was rich, but I'm not :-P ). The beer however is very very very expensive. I think the average pint in Britain is about £2.30, or about 3 and a bit euros. Here it's €6.50 a pint! So a nice english night out (pub, pub, pub, club, kebab) can set you back a small fortune, and in a credit card challenged country like France, that's a real problem!

The alternative is of course to drink comme les français, but seriously, why would anyone want to sip a single demi of tasteless kronenbourg for 4 hours? The only upside of all this that I can think of is the lack of ghastly stag and hen nights that the British are using to invade cheapy beer places like Prague.

Anyway, back to the expensive countries list - before Alison and I came here we were living in Sheffield in the north of England. The north is a lot cheaper than the south, with the super-expensive London zone now expanding to the entire south-east of the country. I expected Paris, being a capital city and all, to be similar in cost of living to London, but amazingly it was no worse than Sheffield! I just couldn't understand why the french were all whinging when they talked about the cost of Paris... In fact, with housing in France being so relatively cheap, the English have now bought up vast tracts of Brittany, Toulouse, Chamonix etc, determined to live idyllic lives running 'gites' - there are even tv programs on the BBC on how to do this! I haven't noticed any programs about the post-traumatic return trip to the UK after being ostracised by the french and ruined by local planning permission laws, which is a shame since that would be *way* more entertaining...

So, last word on the subject of country comparisons - with regards to the most popular comparison (judging by the vast number of comments), where's the UK? and if it's so true, why do shoe sizes only go up to a 46 here (if you're lucky)!