The 'most normal' town in britain

sgosden

Bridgehouse said:

Handsome_Chris said:

Didcot, even Wetherspoons won't go there.

Bicester Snob

True story. they looked. Then went to Abingdon instead.

Handsome_Chris

Bridgehouse said:

Handsome_Chris said:

Didcot, even Wetherspoons won't go there.

Bicester Snob

Bicester Snob with a Wetherspoons.  #treatyoself

Bridgehouse

Handsome_Chris said:

Bridgehouse said:

Handsome_Chris said:

Didcot, even Wetherspoons won't go there.

Bicester Snob

Bicester Snob with a Wetherspoons.  #treatyoself

You lucky lucky boy

Handsome_Chris

Every day is a gift in Bicester. 

57Deluxe

The only thing* Didcot had, the second only thing Didcot had going for it was those pluming cooling towers that I used to see from the high pass on the A339 at Kingsclere just the other side of Basingstoke on a cold clear winter's morning...

* Oh and the Railway Museum

sgosden

57Deluxe said:

The only thing* Didcot had, the second only thing Didcot had going for it was those pluming cooling towers that I used to see from the high pass on the A339 at Kingsclere just the other side of Basingstoke on a cold clear winter's morning...

* Oh and the Railway Museum

TBF we've still got pluming cooling towers, they're just low level, and not as noticeable, unless they're on fire...

Bridgehouse

Handsome_Chris said:

Every day is a gift in Bicester. 

Free gift you get with a copy of the Sun?

Sleepyscholar

guitars4you said:

just baffles me as to what the research criteria can call normal - for something to be normal then something else has to be not normal - so for now what is not a normal town and what will I find there ? - Toon town - some weird alien characters - mud hut style shopping centres and wacky natives with multiple body piercings and wear string vests 

My previous post didn't do the trick, so let's try again: 'normal' in this context -- as the article makes pretty clear -- means closest to the 'norm'. Best way to understand 'norm' would probably be 'average'.

So it is absolutely nothing to do with 'normal/abnormal' as you're using it, which is a matter of cultural expectations.

It's saying let's take a bunch of measures like how old people are, how many own houses, how many voted for Brexit, etc and compare the averages with those of the country as a whole. Do that for towns all over Britain and you find that overall, Didcot is closer to the average (technically the median, but let's understand that colloquially as 'average').

'for something to be normal then something else has to be not normal': OK, so Chipping Norton is not 'normal' because its average income would be way above that of the UK as a whole, Bournemouth is not normal because its average age is too high, Stoke is not normal because too many people voted Brexit... etc. etc. Are you getting the picture?

sgosden

Sleepyscholar said:

guitars4you said:

just baffles me as to what the research criteria can call normal - for something to be normal then something else has to be not normal - so for now what is not a normal town and what will I find there ? - Toon town - some weird alien characters - mud hut style shopping centres and wacky natives with multiple body piercings and wear string vests 

My previous post didn't do the trick, so let's try again: 'normal' in this context -- as the article makes pretty clear -- means closest to the 'norm'. Best way to understand 'norm' would probably be 'average'.

So it is absolutely nothing to do with 'normal/abnormal' as you're using it, which is a matter of cultural expectations.

It's saying let's take a bunch of measures like how old people are, how many own houses, how many voted for Brexit, etc and compare the averages with those of the country as a whole. Do that for towns all over Britain and you find that overall, Didcot is closer to the average (technically the median, but let's understand that colloquially as 'average').

'for something to be normal then something else has to be not normal': OK, so Chipping Norton is not 'normal' because its average income would be way above that of the UK as a whole, Bournemouth is not normal because its average age is too high, Stoke is not normal because too many people voted Brexit... etc. etc. Are you getting the picture?

Picture got. still more fun to mock a dull town.

Sleepyscholar

sgosden said:

Picture got. still more fun to mock a dull town.

Hey, I didn't say that Didcot wasn't a dull town, and well worth mocking! Though I also remember those cooling towers: I always used to wake up on the train just as I was passing them. Not normal, that...

guitars4you

Sleepyscholar said:

guitars4you said:

just baffles me as to what the research criteria can call normal - for something to be normal then something else has to be not normal - so for now what is not a normal town and what will I find there ? - Toon town - some weird alien characters - mud hut style shopping centres and wacky natives with multiple body piercings and wear string vests 

My previous post didn't do the trick, so let's try again: 'normal' in this context -- as the article makes pretty clear -- means closest to the 'norm'. Best way to understand 'norm' would probably be 'average'.

So it is absolutely nothing to do with 'normal/abnormal' as you're using it, which is a matter of cultural expectations.

It's saying let's take a bunch of measures like how old people are, how many own houses, how many voted for Brexit, etc and compare the averages with those of the country as a whole. Do that for towns all over Britain and you find that overall, Didcot is closer to the average (technically the median, but let's understand that colloquially as 'average').

'for something to be normal then something else has to be not normal': OK, so Chipping Norton is not 'normal' because its average income would be way above that of the UK as a whole, Bournemouth is not normal because its average age is too high, Stoke is not normal because too many people voted Brexit... etc. etc. Are you getting the picture?

I still think such surveys are totally stupid and pointless - There was a recent one about which country was the most racists - Another one was which country has the happiest people and granted Syria is not going rank to clearly in this - How the hell can you 'accurately' obtain an opinion on some of these factors - Certain points are clearly measurable - others aren't - I don't read them as I think they are pointless, but you do see them listed as headlines