Maybe it's that word "country" that has set people off this way - perhaps the question might have produced less heat and more light if it had left out the word and said "place" instead. Or maybe it was that ambiguous word "great" that set the adrenaline pumping.

I wondered if what set brucie off launching this thread was the story in the media about a recent survey by Economist magazine that looked at 111 countries, and decided that Ireland was easily top for quality of life. Of course that's not quite the same as "great" in the sense some people have interpreted that word.

The UK came in at 29 (just in front of South Korea), and the USA at 13.