The thing about Milton Keynes is that it is not quite enough like Singapore. Literally no-one has thought this before. It is an entirely original sentence. You read it here first. It is, however, not my thought. It was conceived by the good burghers of that feted metropolis, specifically, business people with sticky shoes. Business people with sticky shoes are sick and tired of the adhesive nature of Milton Keyne's thoroughfares. It is the chewing gum, expectorated from the slackened jaws of its densest denizens, that makes their footwear so adherent. And they are not going to stand for (or on) it any longer.
A proposal has been put forward by a consortium of tradespeople for Milton Keynes to go the way of Singapore and outlaw the selling, chewing and, especially, the spitting of gum within the city's boundaries. Spokesperson Carmel said "We are trying to get the message across to people to be more considerate." And I say good luck to Carmel and her doughty lobby. Getting people to be more considerate is a worthy cause, one for which they will need all the luck they can get. Wars have started over a lack of consideration and none of them ended well for the towns they started in. But why stop at chewing gum? If you are looking at improving the lives of the amiable and the accommodating, the respectful and polite, then I think we can go a lot further than a ban on all that Wrigley's can provide.
How about leaf blowers for starters? Grown men chasing fallen foliage around with a machine that sounds like a massacre in a bee hive and is as loud as a lift off at NASA. This act is usually performed in the morning. On the weekend. If only someone had invented a quiet, less polluting and more efficient way of collecting leaves into a pile. Oh wait, that's right, they have. It's called a rake. I offer this advice with the greatest possible respect: why don't you use a rake you useless, lazy fat slobs? That way you will get the exact same job done in the same amount of time, firm up your forearms and not wake up the neighbourhood, by which I mean everyone living in your county.
In a similar vein, may I propose a ban on two wheeled motor vehicles that make the same noise as fifty four wheeled ones. Why a moped, which has the same sized engine as a food blender needs to make such a whining racket is mystifying. It doesn't seem to be deliberate on their part - no one would intentionally draw attention to themselves by creating such a weedy, cacophonous commotion. Motorbikes are another thing entirely. I know why men on motorbikes like to make a sonorous, earth shaking din - it is because they think it makes them appear tough. Hear is the news, whisper it softly, it doesn't. It makes them look like dorks. Dorks with wee-wees the size of cocktail sausages. Not the look they are going for, I bet.
The same type of men that gad about on their mechanical velocipedes wilfully and with malice aforethought whip their tops off at the merest hint of warmer weather. I should like to ban that too. I think I speak on behalf of all mankind, and a significant majority of womankind when I say that we do not wish to see your jiggling bazooms. Neither is their any desire on our part to wonder at your straining stomach, so big that either the Alien monster must be making its escape or they have attempted to shoplift a football by swallowing it. Put it away, or you shall feel the full force of the law.
Then there is the greeting of many kisses. French people may have this off pat but, and let me be perfectly clear here, WE ARE NOT FRENCH. We don't know which side to start on, or how many is required. Sometimes it is just once and at other times only four will do, which is obviously preposterous. Kissing someone four times that you are not about to have hot interpersonal naked relations with seems like it takes years to complete, is not exciting or even comfortable and we should stop doing it right now. Can we please go back to shaking hands and mumbling something we can't quite catch. That's the British way.
While we are at it, let's ban golf umbrellas on the High Street - there's not enough room; footballers spitting - they only do it because they think it looks hard; people who stop without warning in the middle of the street for no apparent reason, forcing you to run into the back of them; wind farms - there has to be a better way; owners who doggie don't pick up their mutt's doggie doos and automated supermarket check outs - what exactly are they expecting in the baggage area?
That's enough to be getting on with. I am predicting a great success. Milton Keynes has shown us the way. And literally no-one has though that before either.