OLD cynic that I am, I sense that Nurofen’s survey citing Bournemouth as one of the most painful places to live might be an effort to garner cheap publicity... and it’s worked.

Having lived in the most beautiful part of the UK for 22 years now, I suppose I’m in a good position to look quizzically at the notion that working 600 yards from a beach in a (mainly) clean, (mainly) sunny, cosmopolitan town between the New Forest and the Jurassic Coast is somehow distressing and agonising.

So let’s look at where the public relations company that’s rattled out this lazy excuse for ‘in-depth nationwide research’ is based.

Yes, it’s London. The same London that somehow came just 7th in the poll – just ahead of notoriously rowdy, bawdy Exeter.

The same London that’s noisy, dirty and about as welcoming as a poke in the eye.

The same London where you are likely to be mown down by a group of foreign students rather than negotiate your way round them as you do round here.

The same London where a trip on the underground on a hot summer’s day can taint you for life or you can spend an hour in a baking hot car travelling two miles – having paid for the privilege of using their precious, overcrowded roads.

But the biggest pain of all?

The press release’s liberal use of the word ‘staycationer’ to depict those people who holiday in Britain rather than head abroad.