Milton Keynes
Was in Milton Keynes for a few hours yesterday. It's a city made by a committee. It's half concrete half boy band. It's straight lines and ninety degree corners. It's the only place in England that reminds me of a David Lynch film. It has a certain foreboding and hidden menace. The geometric symmetry is just too neat and too tidy. You know something terrible must be happening behind those perfect boxes. I saw a place with Gaming Amusement outside it. The place was a steel oblong. It was the size of an aircraft hanger. No noise. No life.
It was my second time in Milton Keynes. The first time I went, I went on a pub crawl. What I remember most is walking through carparks and tunnels most of the night.
Most strange.
4 comments:
you went on a pub crawl in Milton Keynes? Didn't that mostly involve those weird community centre style bars they have?
I lived near MK for many years, and as a teenager I recall that the place was seriously lacking in pubs!
Tell me more!
ST
Hey ST,
I really can't remember much about the pubs and bars. Must have been nearly 10 years ago I was back there. The one pub I do remember was more like an office lobby than a pub or bar. It had high ceilings and loads of plate glass windows. It was on some kind of industrial estate. The obvious problem with those glass box bars is the total lack of atmosphere. It just evaporates into the ether.
Talking about non descript building reminds me of the places in Japan, except they have rather perfected versimilitude. From the outside looks like an office. The inside can look like a 19th century samurai living, a 20th century german ale house or even 25 century brothel.
My parents debated moving there before I was born, as I think they worked in the vicinity at the time. I've only been there for shopping trips on days more grey than the landscape.
Hmm... luck escape for you methinks...
Mind you, the oppressive and alienating landscape may have inspired you to be an avant garde artist. Or something.
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