MILTON KEYNES

I went to Milton Keynes yesterday. First time in a year. And the last time was the first time ever, I think; but then I only saw the rail station.

This time I had the unmitigated joy of seeing the rest of the town. And I can report without any equivocation that the critics are right. It's the most ghastly place I've ever been.

As Jim Morrison once said about some town or other in America, "It's a 1950s idea of twenty years in the future." All soul-destroying glass and metal architecture. No colour. Not even any apparent difference between buildings on different streets. I walked for nearly an hour through the town in the freezing cold and every street I went through looked exactly like every other street. Only the changing names of the large homogenising American-import chain stores gave an indication that we had made progress and hadn't, actually, been walking around in circles.

I needed a trip out of the county yesterday, but I do wish I hadn't gone there. Just makes you realise what a vain and unimaginative idiot man is.

Dante's supplemental circle of Hell, Milton Keynes is, created with modern textiles rather than flame and burning rock.