Milton Keynes

Witness this;

Tourist; "Perchance good gentleman, could you direct me to the train station? many thanks."

Milton Keynesian; "Yes, walk down this dead straight road past four right-angled turnings, take the fifth right-angled turning to the left, walk down that dead straight road for two right-angled turnings, past the chemist, then take the third right-angled turning to the right, then take the first right-angled turning to the left, past the butchers which looks exactly like the chemist but with more meat, take the third right-angled turning to the left just past the hosiery store which looks remarkably like the chemist and the butchers but with more suspenders, then take the fifth right-angled turning to the left and proceed 300 yards past four right-angled junctions and hey ho, you have arrived at the locomotive station."

Tourist; "Gosh, thank you, that's very complicated, I'm not sure I can remember it all. Are there any notable landmarks or interesting buildings which I may look out for and use to navigate?"

Milton Keynesian; "In Milton Keynes? No, of course not. They would disrupt our beautifully planned grid-system."

Tourist; "Oh dear."

Milton Keynesian; "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You are trapped forever, mortal, you shall never leave, YOU ARE ONE OF US NOW!"

YOU SEE? DO YOU? Noone chooses to move to Milton Keynes, they just can't find their fucking way out once they've been there! It's a trap! The shopping's not even particularly good, they just say it is to lure innocent retail addicts into their sickening trap!

Tourist: "Can you please tell me where to get to the train station in Milton Keynes"

Milton Keynesian: "Follow the sign that says 'Train Station'"

Tourist: "OH NO!!! WHAT DO I DO I CAN'T READ!!"

Milton Keynesian: "Oh great, another illiterate to be stuck here"

Thom

the shopping centre (the new bit at any rate) is ok, and the best thing is the POINT. great 80's red pyramid thing. dud = that new huge shell thing that i think is an ice rink or something.

also, there dont seem to be any houses in mk so i guess akll the people milling about the place are from luton or bedford.

There are plenty of houses there. Also a Japanese peace pagoda, Japanese school, lovely Willen lake where we used to hire boats, Rollers the roller disco and loads of other grebt stuff.

It is not that hard to find your way around, at least not if you know vaguely where you are headed. I have never got lost there and I have the world's worst sense of direction.

I hate.

Wimbledon have just been granted permission to move to Milton Keynes. MK was Europe's largest urban area without a football league club, looks set to have a fotball league team by default. Wimbledon fans are disgusted !

See BBC Dons get Milton Keynes green light

Anyways... I went there for the first ime last week and i really liked it. I can see that navigating is tricky and that without a car you'd be screwed, but I though that the buildings were nice (proper modernism rather than the horrible post modern office blocks that pretend to be cottages that i'm always visiting in slough, reading, maidenhead, etc...) and that the place was very clean compared with london (not hard). also, the railway station had TVs on the platform showing pop videos!

I also used to hold the economist theory, especially because MK was conceived in the Keynesian era (1967) but became very closely identified with the Friedmanite era (1980s).

the other Robin is dead right about architecture, obv: *why* did Cliff Richard's "Wired For Sound" (shot in MK) win Worst Video Of All Time on VH1? Milton Keynes in 1981 looked nicer than a lot of the other options, then or now.

Watch Home Front on BBC2 on 12th Feb if you want to see more

I'm not sure I could cope with those garish colours myself, Vicki. But it was interesting that you were as much concerned with redesigning the garden so yr kids had a nice place to play. That was the oddest thing about the programme for me - the garden redesign seemed practical and sensible, apart from the blue lights in the floor (which were cool btw, I want some now0 whereas the interior design seemed anything but. Lawrence's internal work jarred with the garden bloke's stuff. Perhaps they don't get on in real life...maybe you could enlighten us!

I'm working in Milton Keynes tomorrow afternoon.

I've got the morning off work.

Should I head over to Milton Keynes (or any of the surrounding villages) prior to work for a potter or should I just turn up to work on time?

the latter

That bad?

yeah really really don't bother

Seem to have a vague recollection that Olney is pleasant enough, if not wildly exciting. MK itself is horrible though.

I do intensely dislike the MK Centre but I have heard people say that they like living around Milton Keynes (and there's lots of green a short drive from the centre).

I have relatives who live there. It might be nice living there in an "I've got a garden and a bigger house than I could afford elsewhere" kind of way, but I really can't see anything that would draw you in as a tourist. It's just lots of characterless housing estates. Not even grim ones, just boring ones.

sherrington has some nice pubs and is rather scenic.

I couldn't even remotely pinpoint MK on a map, and I'm sure I've passed through it dozens of times on the train. My secretary was a big fan, she hated when her job was relocated and she had to come to work in London. I'm intrigued enough to look it up now.

is she a psychopath?

(bumped for the monday morning view point)

some of the countryside around there is lovely. Stony Stratford isn't far away from the centre I think, and while the centre can is slightly oppressively bucolic irrc (slightly sinister tea rooms etc), it's a good place to get a break from MK.