Originally Posted by Alan2005

When was the last time you were back? If you are in the city and it's anything like leeds it will a load of pound shops where proper shops used to be.

Originally Posted by dboy

york or manchester? Manchester I was last there about 2.5 years ago and york about 5 years ago or so.

manchester has never really impressed me, nor leeds for that matter. And people say vancouver lacks culture/vibrancy - everytime. I go to manchester by the time i've had a few pints, been to Gregs and the chippy, i'm done...........it takes me about an hour to get bored of wandering around the city centre.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

Firstly, I am not contradicting myself - I cited the MMR to contradict your view that relying on personal experience is the best thing to do generally - this is what you said and I disagree with you - personal experience distorts reality if you assume it applies universally (which was the point of me bringing this up in the first place)

Ok, you are confusing me because your car theft example has no meaning. as far as the BCS is concerned it doesn't matter whether the police were involved or not - so please can we ignore this aspect. For the sake of argument forget about the police for a moment.

Right, I'm not exactly sure how the BCS do their survey - but I assume they either contact directly or by post a random cross section of UK residents. These may or may not have been a victim of crime (they may or may not have reported it to the police - but we don't care about that right now). Now of those sampled a percentage are not going to want to do the survey because they don't have time, can't be arsed or whatever. Now their views are not going to get counted - but I assume that the BCS plan for this and make sure their sample size is big enough for that not to matter.

Now I'm also assuming you are arguing from a point that the BCS under reports crime rather than just has a margin of error (which is implicit in all surveys unless you ask everybody). The only way that the BCS can be under reporting constantly is for those that have been a victim of crime to be more likely not to do the survey than those that have not. I find this unlikely: i.e if they survey 10,000 people and only 9000 reply then the chances of somebody in the non-responding 1000 being a victim is probably going to be the same as one of the 9000 who did respond.

Originally Posted by Danny B

I was on a plane yesterday morning heading back from the UK to Vancouver. There was a CDN girl (30ish) sitting behind me and she was slagging off London for 10 hrs. She had been there for 1 year and could not wait to get back to Vancouver. Price of gym memberships, concrete playgrounds for kids, traffic, living costs, small apartments were just a few of her dislikes.

Thank God for iPods to block out noise...

Originally Posted by rae

so if personal experience distorts reality?? why did you post this...."Well, then in my personal experience the UK is crime free." but anyway i have no idea what this statement is supposed to mean. if you are trying to say just because i have had a car crash i will never drive again cause i may have another one, you are lumping the whole population together as people with borderline anxiety issues.
then you go on to say ignore this bit of the argument, don't worry about that bit, i'm not sure about this bit, i assume this bit, i don't know about that bit. good grief. you either say stats are good or stats are bad its that simple. you said stats were good, now you are picking and choosing little bits here and there to make it fit. here is an idea alan why don't you for once admit you do not have the foggiest what you are talking about and just leave it there, instead of kicking the shit out of it for the sake of it like you usually do.

Originally Posted by rae

how was your trip? may help the o/p

Originally Posted by Danny B

We spent a week in the Costa Del Sol visiting my parents in Malaga, and one week in SE England. Spain was great and the UK was how I remembered it...expensive, miserable unhelpful shop assistants and lots of traffic.

Nothing much had changed in my hometown except a few more shops had closed down. Shopping centres were packed full, lots of new cars on the road, all my friends had nice big TV's with the top Sky sports package but claimed they were broke

We are all very happy in Canada so the thought of moving back never crossed our minds...except for once when I looked at the fabulous exchange rate if I sold up here

My advice to the OP is to experience as much of life as you possibly can, you only live once 'eh.

Originally Posted by rae

yeah i noticed that too, only one friend cited money worries or difficulties, everyone else seemed fine. same for the shopping centres, not busy but ticking over. i found driving difficult with the traffic, smaller lanes and faster and actually had an accident that cost me 650 quid!!
i know what you mean about the exchange rate, i have considered moving back a few times, especially recently with that. fortunately i came to my senses, big houses alone do not a happy rae make.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

You were the one stating that the BCS survey was invalid because not all crimes are reported to the police. I say this statement is false because the BCS survey includes crimes that have not been reported to the police. If you have other reasons why you distrust the BCS survey then I'm happy to hear them, but please make them actual verifiable reasons rather than 'you just can't trust statistics'.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

I guess a fair enough you've got a point there is too much to ask

Originally Posted by Alan2005

Oh come on rae, that's an incoherent rant. '.

Originally Posted by rae

i don't trust stats. i can say that. just as you say you generally don't trust cops. i don't trust politicians, car salesmen, insurance agents, bankers, dr.'s and many others. all through personal experience. you can pass off the one remark as sarcastic, but you have mentioned it before and since as inconsequential.

Originally Posted by rae

no i didn't, all i said was...."please don't trust BCS OR any Home office crime stats", nothing about the BCS being invalid. i then went on to explain my feelings, and one reason was that i feel these surveys are not filled in by people who are victims of crime cause they cannot be bothered. further to that not all crimes are reported to the police, so if they are not reported to the cops it stands to reason that they would not be reported to other bodies either. so you can wax lyrical about + - degrees and in built margins of error but all that does is add to my argument that the whole thing is flawed and innacurate.

Originally Posted by rae

isn't this the Ad Hominem you were complaining of on here (BE) earlier?