Balderdash, old boy
I hail from Winchester and it's more expensive than much of London - my brother lives in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire and has to pay over £3.50 for a Guinness, and neither of the aforementioned towns has the finest and cheapest international cuisine like London does.

Some of London is shit, like all places, and the pace of life is not for all, but rent/property prices aside, you can live very well on not that much if you know how.

I'll bet you cannot visit a place with the calibre of the 2008 Indian Restaurant of the Year and dine like a king for little over a tenner in most towns.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 11 May 2009, 13:45, Reply)