How much?

So Singapore is the 14th most expensive place on earth to live (up from 17th last year). Mercer's Worldwide Cost of Living Survey for 2007 has shown that Moscow is the most expensive city, and Algiers (in Algeria) is the cheapest. I could have told you that. How do I know? Well, paying anything like what we do for booze is unseemly. But, interestingly, there are comparisons of objects that are seemingly incomparable.

One such ranking is for coffee. The Mercer survey tells us that a cup of coffee in London had an average price of £2. £2!?! And what exactly do they mean by an average cup? Do they man a cup that is neither good nor bad, decidedly average in fact, will cost you £2? Or do they mean that the mean cost of a cup of coffee (taking into account all cups of coffee available in London) is £2?

Moreover, how valid is this as a comparator? Are they comparing Lattes from Starbucks globally (probably not, given the £2 quote for London), which in any case might not be comparable? Or are they comparing different types of coffee from different outlets of different chains?

Nonetheless, here are the coffee shorts (espresso facts, if you like):

Moscow: £3.14
Tokyo £2.33
Copenhagen: £2.55
Dublin: £2.00
New York: £1.93
Beijing: £2.32
Sydney: £1.41
Vancouver: £1.42
Johannesburg: £0.98
Buenos Aires: £0.91

Source: Mercer Human Resource Consulting

All well and good, but is the coffee in Buenos Aires any good?