Scrutineer

I've got my eye on Tassie as a potential place to live one day, but we'll see... Here is a picture of the rotten carrot delivered to my house three days ago by the way. Inedible.

Hobgoblin and Speckled Hen were both my local beers but they moved the latter to Suffolk I think. It's $18 for 2.2 litres in the UK and $25 for around the same here, which isn't too bad considering the distance and so on. You've inspired me to get some of that in for Christmas, Endless Winter!

It's the books that's the real killer, yes. I have thousands - a lifelong collection, so for me borrowing is no good. You can get classics in Aus for a reasonable price but newer books are just insanely overpriced. I bought a pretty rare book - a large philosophy book - 2/3 years ago and it was $17 in the UK and $55 in Dymocks - so I scanned the barcode into my phone there and then in the shop and ordered it from Amazon. It was probably on its way before I left the shop. This is the new competition and the Aussie book market is just getting slaughtered. I think there's only 3 or 4 book shops in central Adelaide now.

Perhaps if they gave better customer service people would use them more. A friend of my wife's travelled on Qantas last year. She was given a meat sandwich after having requested vegetarian. When she asked for it to be changed she was told to bite around the meat. Contrast that with the impeccable service Singapore have given my family and there is no competition. The last Western airline I travelled on was Canadian in 2004 and even asking for a Pepsi half way into the flight was too much effort and induced eye-rolling from the stewardess. They have competition now, and they're losing.

Singapore are usually very good. I try to fly non-Western airlines because the service is usually much better on Asian carriers in particular.

When I lectured at university in England I can tell you that the European students were usually more literate than the British kids - the only exception were those who were privately educated in the UK. The kids from the average comps were unconfident and unable to put a coherent argument together. I felt so sorry for them - 12 years of FT education and many were only semi-literate.

You're not going to persuade a billion Muslims of that. If it gets to the point that people are afraid to go out and bombs going off all over the place it will end in internment, anyway. You can't have an entire democracy brought to its knees by a few hundred crackerjacks.

Let's not be silly - the UK is a state, and it is states that are being measured and ranked in international studies. Clearly the word "country" in this context refers to a nation-state, and Scotland is not a nation-state, therefore it is included in the UK in these rankings. The easy way to work this out is to look in your passport. If you are Scottish, then you are a British citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The short-hand for this is the UK. I'm not debating the two systems, merely explaining why Scotland is incorporated into UK figures for the purposes of this international ranking.

For international rankings Scotland is put in with the rest of the UK because it is not a separate country.

Skani We buy vegetables from farmers' markets that are supposed to be fresh on the day - I had carrots delivered on Friday and two days later they were black and bendy. After six years of searching we have given up trying to find quality vegetables in Australia. Also, I would bring back good drinking water. The tap water in Adelaide is fluoridated, tastes like crap and in the summer comes out the cold tap at about 30 degrees so very unpleasant to drink. For this reason we buy a lot of mineral water but that often smells funny and has even been contaminated in the past with bits of crap floating around in it. So add drinking water to my list along with the fresh vegetables.

Fresh vegetables, shoes, clothes, books, CDs, DVDs, proper beer, single malt whisky, cars. Reasons - some are hard to come by, others are ludicrously expensive. For example, I want a series of books at the moment which are $26 on Amazon, but $155 in Dymocks because they have to be bought individually. No Amazon in Australia so I have to order them on UK Amazon.

Exactly.

This is because it includes HE, which is no longer a realistic goal for normal British kids thank to the tuition fees. The UK has some of the best unis in the world, and this drags it up this league table, irrespective of the fact normal British kids can't go to uni there anymore. Take Oxbridge out and look at a comparison of the schooling system, and Australia is 4 and UK is 31, as I wrote earlier, to which this post is clearly a rebuttal. The fact remains the UK schooling system is a shambles, and even the government openly admits this. "These rankings are based upon an amalgamation of international tests and education data - including the OECD's Pisa tests, and two major US-based studies, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls). They also include higher-education graduation rates, which helped the UK to a much higher position than in Pisa tests, which saw the UK failing to make the top 20." The 2012 Pisa Ranking put Australia at 19, and the UK at 26th. This league table that Perthbum has linked to is a highly fudged piece of statistical data trying to make the UK's appalling school system look much, much better. What they are basically doing is 1) denying normal kids access to university, 2) running some of the worst secondary schools in the OECD, and 3) putting HE into the stats so they can tell the kids they're in the second best system in Europe. An all-round disgrace as I thin we will all agree.

Maybe £10,000 for six months, but you'll have to be frugal.

Postcode lottery for education in the UK is notorious. Your ability to buy an expensive house is critical when selecting a good school -selection by wealth.

Education is my field. The UK comprehensive system is a joke which desperately needs an overhaul, and there is constant debate to bring back grammars. Private schools are totally exclusive. Famously, Finland has the world's best education system. These things are complex and hard to measure, but the UN Education Index is the best international equivalency we have. Finland is 1, Australia is 4, and the UK is 31, to give you some idea of how the systems are ranked.

The education system in the UK is real mess though - that's worth considering. I want my kids to be with their family more (meaning move to UK) but Australia is with no doubt a more equitable society with a better education system, and both these things are backed by objective facts, before we go down that route. So this is why so many of us are left in such a difficult position, especially those of us with kids to think about.

This is critical though.

I think a great life in England is possible but despite outrageous Australian rip-off retail prices I would still argue we would need to be much richer to have the same quality if life in the UK that we have in Australia. This is mainly because of the considerably more expensive property prices in England, but also other factors like the terrible commuting there, the traffic, the rude people, the litter and the low wages. Having said all that there are advantages for us in the UK so it's hard weighing them all up. The expat's curse.

We've been back once in six years. We went back in high summer (British summer) and I was surprised how cold it was, but actually adapted back very fast and preferred it. Surprised how rude people were in the service industry as well. I miss the landscape and the climate in the UK a lot, and family of course massively, and also how close it is to Europe. Other than that I miss nothing else about it. A big problem here we have with living on Treasure Island is how gouged we are on all prices, and a family of five or six will need to find $12,000 before their holiday starts just for the flights, which obviously is extremely prohibitive to visiting the UK. Because Australians have to pay much more for flights than everyone else on earth, it's cheaper to pay for your family to fly over and visit you here. Flights starting and ending in Australia are usually around 30% more expensive.

Our dog always stayed inside, and slept in the bedroom as well. My parents' dog sleeps in the kitchen. For me a dog is good company, part of the family, so I don't see the point in buying one just to ignore it most of the time by leaving it outdoors. It's not like Australians spend all their time outdoors - they sit inside watching RBT every night just like everyone else. I'm told they buy the dogs and put them outside to deter break-ins, but by the looks of this graph it's not working very well.

All British people I know in Aus keep their dogs inside and walk them twice a day. Australians view dog ownership slightly differently - buy three blue heelers and dump them in the back yard for the rest of their lives.

You need to remember that most of us live in Australia, not paradise where you live. Everywhere I have lived in Aus, which is quite a few places in two states, has had barking dogs all over the place. My neighbour is a former policeman and he's got a few stories about the problems they cause, I can tell you. Could be solved eith the stroke of a pen, but the political will's not there.

The advantages to Australia over Britain are generally subjective, but I believe some are general truths - Australian pros - more space, easier people, easier driving, bigger houses, quieter parks, more child-friendly, Australian cons - far away from family, horribly hot summers, mosquitos everywhere, barking dogs in every other back garden, very expensive retail, poor quality vegetables and also it's getting ruined by Americanisation. I would recommend Australia, particularly to raise kids. There are more tax breaks, and better childcare support. It's a fairer society as well. Get a nice place tucked away in the hills (you'll want elevation to escape the heat) and drop down a gear and Aussie is probably the best place in the world to live in. Be warned though - it's a harsh climate, and you will miss the strangest things from the old country...

The global climate has been much hotter and much colder than today throughout its history. At the moment the knicker-twisting is based on a few short decades' figures, which is a bit like measuring the last 10 seconds of the year and predicting next year's weather on it.