Milton Keynes in popular culture

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The place of Milton Keynes in popular culture is best typified by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (in their novel Good Omens) when they say "it was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing." . As a "new city" founded in 1967, Milton Keynes has grown up with the late 20th and early 21st centuries and received many media mentions, some complimentary, some not. In addition, it has its own local popular culture.

Contents

[edit] Writers, artists and celebrities

  • In Good Omens (see intro), Milton Keynes is cited as an example of a town neither heaven nor hell take credit for, but both regard as a success.
  • The town is also parodied in the Robert Rankin book Web Site Story.
  • The British Comedian Bill Bailey makes reference to Milton Keynes in his stand up show Part Troll, calling the city Satan's lay-by.
  • The humourist Miles Kington once had a book cover cartoon with the caption "Miles Kington? I thought that was one of these dreadful new towns" — not simply an observation that his name resembles a place name, but almost certainly also a reference to Milton Keynes.
  • In the 1970s, UK TV and radio personality Noel Edmonds of the time is credited with tainting the image of Milton Keynes by repeatedly deriding it as a concrete jungle and the natural home of the famous Concrete Cows, depite never having been there. The Development Corporation was quick to point out that Milton Keynes has over 20 million trees. The Concrete Cows are among the earliest examples of conceptual art.
  • Milton Keynes is parodied as Milton Springsteen: It's Quite Nice, Really! in Alexei Sayle's book Train To Hell. Rather than concrete cows, Milton Springsteen features "android yokels." In his earlier stand-up career he performed a song called That's Milton Springsteen to the tune of That's Entertainment by The Jam and talked about a listings paper called "What's on in Milton Springsteen - it's a big sheet of paper with f*ck all on it."
  • The Travel Writer Bill Bryson also features Milton Keynes in his book Notes From A Small Island, in which he gets lost in the pedestrian subway system, the redways, having decided not to ask for directions.

[edit] Road and rail

  • The city's road system, with its abundance of roundabouts and scarcity of traffic lights, is famously difficult to navigate for those unfamiliar with the city, while self-evident to locals. The resultant frustration for visiting motorists is almost certainly the origin of Milton Keynes' often surprisingly bitter reputation with out-of-towners. The city is notable for its number of roundabouts. Their number is far higher than is typical in British towns: for example, within the city limits, the A421 route passes through 13 roundabouts in a 10.7 km stretch, and the A509 route passes through 12 roundabouts in a 6.4 km stretch. A book called Milton Keynes Roundabouts led to further editions for other towns.
  • Although the grid roads have conventional names such as Portway and Saxon Street, their original planning designations have stuck and locals are more comfortable with the shorthand "H5" and "V7" (where V is vertical or north/south and H is horizontal or east/west). The Vs are Streets and the Hs are Ways.
  • The road that goes through the city centre, Midsummer Boulevard, is named because it is aligned so that the midsummer sunrise shines directly along it each year, in homage to Stonehenge.
  • The courtyard area of the city train station which displays a Steam Engine (a replica London and North Western Railways' "Bloomer") is widely regarded[citation needed] as one of the best places to skateboard in Europe. Due to the arrangement of the pavements, skateboards can move freely and it has plenty of places to attempt "Grinds" and other skateboarding tricks. However in recent years, the Council has disliked the skateboarders' use of this area and has since built a skate park called Station Square across the street under the Bus station. (See Amenities in the main Milton Keynes article).

[edit] Music and film

[edit] National Bowl

  • Many artists have played at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes and some have released DVD or audio recordings. See that article for detailed list.

[edit] The name "Milton Keynes"

  • Contrary to (allegedly) popular misconception, Milton Keynes was not named after the poet John Milton nor the economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes (indeed "Keynes" in the latter is pronounced1 "kay", not "key"), but after a village of the same name that already existed on the site of the proposed New City. The suffix 'village' was added creating the name Milton Keynes Village in 1991, to distinguish it from the larger city. The name Milton Keynes and its similarity to the names of the famous economists Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes has often led to various silly jokes. Once on the television show Yes, Prime Minister, when the PM Jim Hacker mentioned Milton Keynes, the person to whom he was speaking mentioned how Milton Keynes was an economist and the intellectual leader of the Freedmen.

[edit] Footnote

Note 1: Pronunciation varies according to the speaker. The Received Pronunciation of Milton Keynes is [ˌmɪltənˈkiːnz], of Shenley is [ˈʃɛnlɪ], of Loughton is [ˈlaʊtən], of Woughton is [ˈwʌftən], and of Broughton is [ˈbrəʊtən]. Note how there is an example of each of the three phones in English for "ough".

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