Alright.
I'm going to use my first blog post to criticise a local eyesore; I really, really hate what is now termed 'the borough and New City of Milton Keynes.' I should explain that in all honesty, it boils down to complete snobbery. In the years before it was given city status by the late Queen Elizabeth II, I used to take the mick out of work colleagues who would rather pathetically announce, late on a Friday afternoon, that they'd be going "up the city tonight" - in the way that London suburbanites used to say they were going up west. Maybe I was just being cruel, but this proposition, seemingly the limit of their urban imaginations, pointed to a soul-destroying banality. To me, there was infinitely more value to be found in the settle of a country pub or market tavern. Perhaps it was my horizons that were low, but I had (and retain) a deep enthusiasm for aged buildings - whether edifice or hovel, I frequented both - with their atmospheric, historic standing. But not just that: I liked conversation. I liked proper beer. I wanted an authentic drinking experience - I didn't need the cattle market, as alluring as the livestock might have been. I didn't want to enter through those ugly facades of bars concealing sticky carpets, ice-cold lager in December, plastic and chrome furniture, mind-numbing funky house over inaudible conversation...it was all the antithesis of my culture. I suffered such indignities with a detached grace before the inevitable Irish goodbye.
Though now officially exalted in stature of conurbation, 'MK' remains a blot on the landscape that continues to expand its boundaries in the manner of sewage from a blocked drain. My new-ish MP has to appear equally happy to represent the altered constituency boundary of Buckingham and Bletchley, as if they were acceptable as equals. I wouldn't be able to do this. Bletchley has been poisoned by the reach of Milton Keynes' housing and retail estates, creating a ghetto of drive through coffee outlets, tyre shops, inexplicable rat-haven shrubbery, discount supermarkets and potholed dual carriageways. It's neighbour Stony Stratford only stands defiant by virtue of its predominantly 18th century architecture that no chain shop would dare consider the practicalities of occupying. It also has an abundance of smart Victorian houses, and no developer is knocking them down.
Now, I accept that people need houses - but what possessed those modernist town planners? Those blocks of flats - they were competing with the USSR in an aesthetic race to the bottom. I remember once having to visit the area of Fishermead for something or other, and being greeted by the sight of kids setting light to a pile of mattresses. Were I wearing pearls, I'd have clutched them. But what amazes me is the continued thumbs-up given to developers who erect ugly housing. Bucks was gifted an abundance of decent council housing after the second world war, whereupon the quality continued to decline. "I remember when this was all fields", and you can't forget because some arsehole on the council names the streets alluding to their former bucolic glories. I wonder what Fishermead would've looked like? Issac Walton by a meadering brook...
The road system - don't get me started - suffice to say it adds to the sense that it's a groundhog day of avenues and roundabouts you'll never escape. And yet it is one of the few towns in southern England that you can get through relatively quickly. Small mercies.
It's been some years since I last visited the retail Mecca of 'The Centre: MK', as the unstoppable rise of internet shopping has ended the necessity to enter hell for a few shirts and a pair of jeans - though it has dragged the traditional high street down with it. At one time, there were actually a few interesting shops such as Chappell's music with it's shiny guitars. Alas, the internet did for them too.
But perhaps the lowest point is the city's numerous 'green spaces', which I'm sure for residents represent a real opportunity to connect with nature (magpies, Canada geese) but to me are sheer artifice. This is what MK is: artifice. Old towns, if spared the town planner's axe (unlike Aylesbury was) are shaped by the evolution of building styles. They are a coherant composite of fashion and technology - Milton Keynes is defined by concrete, glass and plastic. It has no history, no frame of reference beyond modern functionality. Perhaps these green spaces should've been limited in order to contain the sprawl. Whenever I have to pass through - and I'm only ever there because I have to pass through to get somewhere else - I can't help but imagine Milton Keynes as our Pripyat, forty years after the Chernobyl disaster as nature takes over. We live in hope.
Postscript: it won't always be like this. I will moan about HS2 and solar panels, but most blog posts I make will be positive, honest!
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