Happy Birthday Milton Keynes!

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40 today!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/6289393.stm
Irritatingly the beeb have gone with concrete cows.

― Edward Trifle (Ned Trifle IV), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 07:51 (nineteen years ago)

My main memories of MK are of beng stuck at its bloody train station for hours on end and the only place I could get a bloody drink was this piss poor "American-style" (God knows what they meant by it) theme bar. I am thus jaundiced against the place, and disinclined to celebrate.

I beleive Anthony is a fan, however.

― Matt (Matt), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:10 (nineteen years ago)

I like the concrete cows. I can think of worse things for the town to be associated with.

I do wish the football team would drop the 'Dons' from its name. You are not Wimbledon, you are Franchise FC. Get over it already.

― New Mark H (New MarkH), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:12 (nineteen years ago)

The original Development Corporation design concept aimed for a "forest city" and its foresters planted millions of trees from its own nursery in Newlands in the following years. As of 2006, the urban area has 20 million trees. Following the winding up of the Development Corporation the lavish landscapes of the Grid Roads and of the major parks were transferred to the MK Parks Trust, a non-profit charity which is quite separate from the municipal authority and which was intended to resist pressures to build on the parks over time. The Parks Trust is endowed with a portfolio of commercial properties, the income of which pay for the upkeep of the green spaces, a town-wide maintainance model which has attracted international attention.

. . . which is cool.

― Johnney B English (stigoftdump), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:22 (nineteen years ago)

Come on people where is the love?

I like the place. It's easy to move around in, the millions of trees they've planted are really coming into their own and there's some good shopping to be had.

I also like the cows but it seems a pity that it always comes down to that. This was a brave and largely sucessful attempt at creating a decent place to live and work.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:22 (nineteen years ago)

I've been to the snowdome a couple of times. It was fun.

― C J (C J), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:24 (nineteen years ago)

I'D RATHER DIE, THAN MILTON KEYNES
I'D RATHER DIE THAN MILTON KEYNES
IT'S FULL OF SHIT, SHIT AND MORE SHIT
I'D RATHER DIE THAN MILTON KEYNES

(sorry, am contractually and morally obliged to post the above. Though the syntax is confusing - am I saying I would rather die than have MK die? That can't be right)

― === temporary username === (Mark C), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:29 (nineteen years ago)

I've been through it a few times on the train and coach when I was at university in Northampton. There's a Richer Sounds right by the train station. This is the extent of my knowledge.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:35 (nineteen years ago)

i actually have fond memories of my first visit to Milton Keynes at the age of ten with my mum and her friend Tricia. We went to visit a House of the Future exhibition and i remember being v excited about it in the car, having no doubt enthusiastically leafed through the Usborne Book of the Future before we embarked. I remember being v impressed with the hugeness of the shopping centre and how light and pleasant it was cf the crepuscular drabness of my local one (the recently opened Wood Green Shopping City). I was so excited that I ran off from the car park and mum and Tricia didn't know where I was. I went into one of the exhibition rooms and started looking at an exhibit about the use power sources in the home. a man beside me asked me a complicated question that I didn't understand. I remember being quite perturbed by this experience and returned to the car park blissfully unaware that mum and Tricia had been worried about me (mum later told me that she got a major slagging from her friend for wasting her time and ruining the day "why can't you keep that kid of yours under control" ect ect).

― New Mark H (New MarkH), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:40 (nineteen years ago)

Best Style Council song ever.

― God Bows to Meth (noodle vague), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:42 (nineteen years ago)

I haven't heard it for ages.

― New Mark H (New MarkH), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 10:50 (nineteen years ago)

I have a freind who lives in MK so I go there quite often. I'm still not sure what I feel about it. It's very ordered and souless but pleasingly Legoland-y.
There are more roads and roundabouts than trees I'm sure. Feels like it.

― DavidM* (unreal), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 11:48 (nineteen years ago)

But the roundabouts are good!

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:03 (nineteen years ago)

Used to go there quite often when I lived in Leighton Buzzard. Always seemed like such a bland place as far as cultural offerings went. And for all the trees, my abiding memory is of this soulcrushing carscape of grey skies, concrete and tarmac. Milton Keynes, may you rot and burn in hell.

― NickB (NickB), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:08 (nineteen years ago)

Leighton Buzzard

This cannot be an actual place name.

― g00blar (gooblar), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:14 (nineteen years ago)

It is indeed. It's in the lyrics of a Lollies song where we just listed all the songs we passed through on various tours that made us ROFFLE. Leighton Buzzard, Leatherhead, Upper and Lower Slaughter...

― Shoes and Shoegazeability (kate), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:15 (nineteen years ago)

Anyway, is Milton Keynes that place that is one giant roundabout? With millions of little roundabouts connecting them? I had to go there for work training, and we were told not to drive - to get a local cabbie or else we would get horribly lost.

― Shoes and Shoegazeability (kate), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:16 (nineteen years ago)

The Open University is a marvellous institution.

― Mädchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:19 (nineteen years ago)

No, that's swindon.
http://www.swindonweb.com/life/lifemagi0.htm
And it's not that bad at all.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:23 (nineteen years ago)

Or maybe Hemel Hempstead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Roundabout_(Hemel_Hempstead)
Also not that bad.

These things look worse than they are when you actually have to drive around them.

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:24 (nineteen years ago)

No, I'm sure it was Milton Keynes. (Though that Swindon roundabout looks terrifying.)

― Shoes and Shoegazeability (kate), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 12:25 (nineteen years ago)

I do wish the football team would drop the 'Dons' from its name. You are not Wimbledon, you are Franchise FC. Get over it already.

long live AFC Kingston Upon Thames!

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:03 (nineteen years ago)

Uh? We're half a mile from Merton and about 2 miles from the dead centre of Wimbledon. That's closer than the majority of league clubs who HAVEN'T had to start again.

My old man said "be a franchise fan"
I said fuck off, bollocks, you're a cunt

― === temporary username === (Mark C), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:06 (nineteen years ago)

haha alright dude just kidding gosh so defensive.

i like milton keynes. used to live there and all. not much to do though unless you like hanging out in a giant shopping centre.

they used to have the best chinese takeaway in the world, too. but i've moved now and stopped working there.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:12 (nineteen years ago)

Milton Keynes Vs East Kilbride.
I've never been to MK but I wonder if it has more roundabouts than EK?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:28 (nineteen years ago)

http://seedyuk.com/images/mkinnit.jpg

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:29 (nineteen years ago)

East Kilbride was home of the JESUS AND MARY CHAIN therefore it is Dronerock holy ground. I have been there, and had my photo taken. Yes, it was right by a roundabout in fact.

― Shoes and Shoegazeability (kate), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:30 (nineteen years ago)

there aren't that many roundabouts really.

there are about 11NorthSouth + 10EastWest grid roads or something similar, and roughly one roundabout in each interjunction... so.. 110 or so?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:32 (nineteen years ago)

East Kilbride is a shopping centre with a church and two wee houses attached. My mum loves it.

All I know about Milton Keynes is (a) the Coachway where National Express coaches stop, which in turn is about six miles from Actual Milton Keynes, and (b) the fact that the shopping centre is about nine thousand miles from the train station, or at least that's how it seems if you don't know the place.

Oh, and my best friend at school is a Tory councillor there, but enough said about that already I think.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:33 (nineteen years ago)

Have you discussed the BBC with him?

― === temporary username === (Mark C), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:54 (nineteen years ago)

that coachway is a classic. it's almost like as if everyone got so enthusiastic about designing a whole new city they forgot to plan the coach station.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:02 (nineteen years ago)

http://www.mkweb.co.uk/travel/images/P1010005.jpg

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:04 (nineteen years ago)

now for a more realistic picture put about 12 more coaches behind that one...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:05 (nineteen years ago)

is a picture alone able to represent that of those 12 coaches, none of them is the one you've been waiting an hour for?

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:07 (nineteen years ago)

East Kilbride was home of the JESUS AND MARY CHAIN therefore it is Dronerock holy ground. I have been there, and had my photo taken. Yes, it was right by a roundabout in fact.

And I spent the 1st 5 years of my life there (plus another year between 8&9).

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:09 (nineteen years ago)

The urban planner, Melvin Webber, whose ideas influenced the original planners of MK died last November.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/12/01_webber.shtml

'Seeing the city as something of a giant switchboard, Webber anticipated by decades the currently fashionable views of the network society. In light of new forms of communication and the prevalence of the automobile, he argued that concentrated, denser urban forms were not necessarily more desirable than more dispersed settlements - ideas that resonate today in debates over urban sprawl.'

― Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:34 (nineteen years ago)

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