Why everywhere should be more like Essex

Apart from the Wye Valley, where I grew up, there are only two places in Britain I’d consider living: Kent and Essex. Since Kent grabbed the ‘Garden of England’ moniker, it’s generally considered the posher of the two, but in reality the two counties are mirror images of each other: in the words of one travel writer, the Medway towns are ‘where you take your northern friends when they claim that southerners are soft’.