Country Life Survey

[derelict]

While killing time at the local (urban) Sainsburys I discovered that its magazine selection runs to "Country Life". On page 42 of the latest issue is a survey on people's attitudes to the countryside.

Apparently 80% of us want to live in the country, but only 20% of us do... (an interesting contrast)

Worryingly 1 in 20 of those questioned thought that Hugh "chicken scragger" Fearnley-Doodah was the best guardian of the UK countryside. That's 25 people. How they managed to get them all in their sample will have statisticians scratching their heads for a long time to come. Likewise the 40 who plumped for Prince Charles. As for the 54% who thought that the people would be friendlier...

Voice of the Countryside Survey | Voice of the Countryside Survey | Houses for sale, properties for sale - Country Life

Not a lot of mention of the wildlife in there as a reason though...

[deer boy]

Seen as i'm 1 of the lucky 20% of people that live in the country how many out of the 80% are people that want holiday homes in the country

[agrumpycow]

Hmmm.....

I always take these kind of statistics with a pinch of salt. 'a survey of more than 1,100 people carried out for Country Life' just says to me that the people who responded to the survey were likely to be readers of Country Life and therefore it is expected that a large proportion would want to live their 'idyllic life' in the country

[Susie]

I have always wanted to live in the country (I used to live in London) and now I do. I love it. If anything, I would like to move to somewhere even more rural.

Perhaps wildlife wasn't mentioned because even in the most built up areas you can find wildlife if you are interested. I know I did.

[shei111]

Hello I dont believe all these surveys either , but im glad that I live rural , but all im use to. shei.

[derelict]

There are some interesting other snippets arising - 'pub landlord' being the most favoured occupation, 60% of respondents claimed they visited Farmers' Markets etc etc - I wish I'd spent more time reading the original take but I suspect it will be off the shelves by now.

Originally Posted by agrumpycow

I always take these kind of statistics with a pinch of salt. 'a survey of more than 1,100 people carried out for Country Life' just says to me that the people who responded to the survey were likely to be readers of Country Life and therefore it is expected that a large proportion would want to live their 'idyllic life' in the country

I looked elsewhere web-wise and it looks as though Country Life do this sort of poll quite regularly - about 1000 people - last year only 65% wanted to live in the country (but that was conducted by a different outfit!) - presumably budget constraints determine the sample size.

However 1100 is almost exactly the same as the smallest number of people I've ever seen accessing this site so it would be rather interesting to have that poll run on this site. I've always wondered about that "guests" statistic - I've logged on at some pretty odd times in my short time on here and there nearly always seem to be between 1800-2500 of them... but I can never correlate this with the "Views" stats and have sometimes wondered whether they really exist. I wonder how many would admit to being "Country Life" readers...

[jennyb]

Originally Posted by derelict

I've always wondered about that "guests" statistic - I've logged on at some pretty odd times in my short time on here and there nearly always seem to be between 1800-2500 of them... but I can never correlate this with the "Views" stats and have sometimes wondered whether they really exist. I wonder how many would admit to being "Country Life" readers...

Actually Derelict, most of those "guests" are search engine bots and not real people.

I would also like to point out that there are cons to living in the countryside - I live about a mile from the nearest bus stop (for a very sparse bus service) and I sometimes long to be able to have a takeaway delivered

Jenny

[derelict]

Originally Posted by jennyb

Actually Derelict, most of those "guests" are search engine bots and not real people.

I would also like to point out that there are cons to living in the countryside - I live about a mile from the nearest bus stop (for a very sparse bus service) and I sometimes long to be able to have a takeaway delivered

Jenny

Well that solves one problem - but I thought it was possible to identify search bots by their IP addresses - and to block them. I know this has been done elsewhere for Yahoo which is apparently the worst offender. I wonder how many of the 20,000 registered members of this forum actually use it...

and I agree that the countryside has its downside. My personal experience involves no water for baths during the summer as the water level dropped below the spring line... hair-raising driving by other drivers along country lanes -the road kill was horrendous and occasionally extended beyond the merely animal - absentee neighbours, rampant theft and mouldy margarine from the local shop... nice to visit but you wouldn't want to live there!

[derelict]

Originally Posted by derelict

Well that solves one problem - but I thought it was possible to identify search bots by their IP addresses - and to block them. I know this has been done elsewhere for Yahoo which is apparently the worst offender. I wonder how many of the 20,000 registered members of this forum actually use it...

Humble apologies - I just saw ((or rather read!) my first "what's going on?" section where the spiders from cyberspace are indeed separated out. I still think they could block the range of Yahoo IP addresses altogether as they swamp everthing else to no good effect...

[stripee]

I agree with agrumpycow's post regarding the readership. I sometimes read it in the doctors/dentist. Country Life wouldn't be likely to mention wildlife as a reason for living in the countryside, not unless it was being shot and cooked.