You're wrong about the healthcare. Residence status for tax and for OHIP for instance are different.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/publications/ohip/travel.aspx

You generally pay taxes for the part of the year you were in Canada before you moved abroad, not for whole year. I.e. Canada taxes you for the time you're still considered a resident. If you move to country that also taxes you for the time you're resident, then you haven't really been dual taxed. Unlike the US who will double-tax their citizens for the whole year.

You seem to have a short memory. New Labour under Blair and Brown were running an increased deficit during the boom, even after increasing taxes. There was no room left for the government to do something with the economy when the recession came.

Government debt stood at 29% of GDP in 2002, and had increased to 37% before the crash in 2007, despite incredibly strong economic conditions. What exactly do you think was going to happen? That's why it's spiralled so quickly to 90% of GDP.

Servicing just the interest on the debt is about the same as the defence budget, or if you prefer, the fourth largest budget item. We're basically fucked for decades due to the previous government's profligacy.

I pay £145 / year (~CAD$233) for a TV license. My TV has a FreeView tuner built-in, but I also have a cheap-o Freesat box too. That's about a half what you need for basic cable in Canada. I actually refused to pay Rogers when I lived in Toronto due to being too expensive, and not offering much more than the handful of free channels from the CN tower (and way better video compression quality OTA).

To get the Game of Thrones, I'd have to pay for the Atlantic HD channel from Sky. That would double or probably triple the cost of TV, and support that scum Rupert Murdoch. Hmmmm, I wonder why people are downloading GoTs in the UK?

The metro area has over 4 million people, but to the OP's point, the city itself is pretty small (the CBD in particular feels tiny). Most of those people live the Aussie dream, in a mindless sprawling suburbia.

I got the impression that the rivers were a constraint on there being a loop, not a factor in haphazardness. Tokyo is spaghetti. London has its own constraints (river and difficulty tunnelling south of the river). Etc.

What makes NYC's subway network particularly haphazard?

I think you missed the point about it being subway networks. Most of the map you linked to is suburban rail. How much is actually subway?

T-Mobile and Orange stopped two of us looking up the menu at one of my favourite (and family friendly) local pubs. We couldn't get to the following site on our iPhones: http://theblacklion-hammersmith.co.uk/eating.php

For me that's way worse than any of the other sites you listed :)

Probably not, unless Brazil is as fucked up as the US with regards to taxing non-domiciled citizens. Ironic and hypocritical concerning the how the country came about.