Views on the town of reading!

[Yorkie]

The Oracle shopping centre is nice enough in Reading but it doesn't really have much more than Churchill Square and neither of them are a patch on the Trafford Shopping centre or Meadowhall.

Apart from that I found Reading to look just like any other sort of town.

Brighton may be tatty around the seams but it does have a uniqueness all of it's own.

And it is home.

 

[readingstockport]

Lived in Cemetery Junction, Hospital/St Johns, Central Reading (Waylen Street) and now Whitley. I'm here because of work and sadly that is all. Don't really like it and hate the bloody Oracle. Stupid f***ing parking arrangements mean all the cars funnel into the town centre to try to get in through one entrance. And then all the visitors wander around getting in the way of my getting to the Hobgoblin.

Drunken agressive thugs from Camberely, Yateley, Farnborough and Aldershot wandering around the town Friday night turning the station into a seige zone.

Sorry, if I could get a job and move elsewhere I would tomorrow.

 

[34064 Fighter Command]

Trust a woman to concentrate on the Shopping centre !

I was brought up in Hassocks, went to school in Brighton, went to Uni in Central London & have lived in Harlow New Town, Bolton & now Newbury.

As far as Reading goes, I'd say it's OK but nothing special. Yes the shoppings good, the transport links are excellent ( how else could I get to Withdean and back in a day on a regular basis ), and the employment market is thriving.

BUT, it's not really anywhere special. There's nothing that you could point your finger at and say about Reading, that you cannot find anywhere else. No defining building, activity or culture. Brighton has it's seaside ' kiss-me-quick ', clubbing and gay scene. London is, well, London. Capital City- 'nuff said. Harlow has it's post-war new town modern architechture ( hideous though some of it is, it does give the place a unique flavour ) and the locals were genuine characters & friendly without any attitude or snobbery. Bolton was steeped in Victorian and ' Cotton is King ' heritage, but the locals had a condecending attitude towards us ' southerners ', whilst Newbury tries hard to keep it's market town and Horseracing tradition alive.

I just don't find any of that character in Reading. It seems to be looking over it's shoulder at nearby Basingstoke and trying to copy it. It seems to have no character of it's own, instead relying heavily in adopting the culture of people who move in to live there. It want to be ' modern & thriving ' yet in achieving this seems to have forgotten it's history & it's roots.

 

[34064 Fighter Command]

I agree with ReadingStockport about the drunken Friday / Saturday nights. Coming back from Withdean, the number of people, usually already a bit worse for wear, loud and agressive, & dressed up for a night out, that seem to get on at Wokingham makes me feel I'm better off spending my nights out in Brighton or Newbury.

The Reading suburbs seem to be full of people, with well paid jobs, lots of disposable income, & nothing better to spend it on than Alchohol. Sometimes it can feel like Magaluf !

 

[Hunting 784561]

Reading isnt too bad for that part of the world, its on the River, and its fairly clean and modern.

Like Brighton in many ways, some of the countryside and villages around it are also very nice.

My only problem with Reading, unlike Brighton, is that it is a company town. It sold it's soul to very large american IT and telecomms corporations who seem to call the shots around there.

The same goes for Bracknell, Slough and all of the other Thames Valley lego towns.

Which is why Brighton is unique, its got spadefulls of character and charm, and occaisionally class, and you just cant go out and buy that.

 

[y2dave]

I live in Bracknell which is so boring and rough the best option for a night out is usually to head to Reading ! Decent enough pub/clubs but they all charge on the door at the weekend and are usually packed with chav blokes. Shoppings nothing special, just your default large town shopping mall.

 

[readingstockport]

I now avoid the town centre on a Friday and Saturday night unless I can't avoid it, coming home from a game etc. It does seem to be calming down slightly now but it went through a phase of people being pushed onto the train lines and the like. Paradoxically the safest times are when the likes of Millwall or Oxford visit. There are so many police swarming everywhere that all the usual chavs sink into the background.

 

[Another Berkshire Seagull]

My only problem with Reading, unlike Brighton, is that it is a company town. It sold it's soul to very large american IT and telecomms corporations who seem to call the shots around there.

Hey thats who I work for...it pays the bills which indirectly helps the Albion

 

[Gilliver's Travels]

What do you honestly think of reading

Well, here's what someone had to say about the place, on the View from the Net Albion website:-


Reading has always struck me as one of those places you only visit en route to somewhere better. Just as Grimsby is fish, and Chesterfield crooked spire, so Reading is, well, okay… what is it? Biscuits if you’re older, otherwise maybe Festival? Anyone got an instant mental picture of a famous Reading landmark? Thought not. However hard he tries, the departing Steve Coppell will be unable to escape the fact that he has traded an umbilical relationship with a sparky, cosmopolitan city for a sort of nondescript dormitory town full of people all wishing they were living somewhere else. In Reading, small town-ness is endemic. It certainly extends to the Madejski stadium which, let’s not be churlish, is a superb arena, soaring as it does above the flat, windswept terrain and capturing perfectly that heady, throbbing, trading estate vibe.


Once inside, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d been transported to Milwaukee. The Biscuitmen enter the arena to the 2001 film music. And they have that stuffed mascot. Reggie Royal, or whatever he is called. Some prat in a furry lion-costume with an oversized head, who spends most of the game cavorting pitchside, performing humiliating routines and begging the crowd to make some sort of noise. Remember the Reading PA man's response to Brooker’s extraordinary, comical opener last season? Silence. Bit different when Cureton scored too late for it to matter, with an admittedly terrific shot. Then Reading's musical cliché department brought itself to orgasm in a way that made 'Glad all Over' seem understated and classy. Granted, we didn't have to endure 'The goalscorer was Jamie Cureton - Jamie (cue crowd) CURETON', because that lumpen, Selhurst-style magic does depend on announcer confidence that the crowd might actually respond.


Despite the club's well-publicised, vaulting ambition, Reading have never made the Cup Final, never played in the top division. They wear all the badges of an essentially small-potatoes club. The town still lacks any real profile, within the UK or internationally. With no distinctive style of their own, grace or feel for occasion, clubs like Reading inevitably reach for the quick fix and the cheap gloss of instant tradition. They get drawn into aping America's grotesque parodies of sporting entertainment. So we get Palace-style pom-pom girls, rubbishy pop tunes for home goal celebrations and cavorting fools in furry animal suits. Steve, you’ll feel you’ve gone back home.


That's from the You Wot? column on VFTN. See:

http://www.viewfromthenet.com/seagulls/seagulls.nsf?Open

 

[Hunting 784561]

Hey thats who I work for...it pays the bills which indirectly helps the Albion

Good luck to you. As an individual, theres absolutely nothing wrong with that....

but if as a town you turn over large pieces of your land to IT and telecomms companies, like Green Park in Reading for example near the M4, if they ever pull out, which many have done over the last couple of years, youre left with a load of empty office blocks and ugly industrial estates.

 

[readingstockport]

One of the most amusing things about reading right now is the bitter, and I do mean BITTER, infighting going on between the 2 mps salter and griffiths. Best show in town by miles

 

[eastlondonseagull]

To be perfectly blunt, I absolutely f***ing HATE Reading. I was born there in the early seventies, lived there for nine years. But against my better judgement, moved back to Whitley Street last August for three months and hated it even more. It was the most unwelcoming, unfriendly, antagonistic place I've ever lived, and I've lived all over the country. Couldn't get out of Reading quick enough.

It should be nice: good infrastructure, decent shops (Oracle), some good bars and clubnights (eg Checkpoint Charlie), but it's full - sorry Berkshire, Reading Ali and Stockport - of wankers. That's a sweeping statement, I admit, but from my experience, there are far more c***s out in Reading town centre on a Friday and Saturday night than any other place I've lived.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

I worked in Reading for nine months a few years back in Apex Plaza, the big office complex stuck onto the side of the station. Must admit I found it a decent kind of place (mind you I've had contracts in Slough and West Drayton so that don't necessarily mean a lot). Seem to recall there was a load of decent pubs to drink in of a lunchtime. Used to usually frequent the Corn Stores, The Hobgoblin, & that one on the the island on the bridge where you could hire a set of oil drums strapped to an outboard motor and bomb about the Thames - had me leaving do on one of those - and I even thought the one at the station where you could get a skillet of bacon and eggs (a skillet being some kind of molten iron pan type thing so it seems) and a decent variety of ales was OK. Spent a glorious summer afternoon at a CAMRA beer festival about five minutes from work there once, and Reading Festival has to be just about the most civilised festival to get to since the demise of the Stanmer Park Essential Festival. So, yeah, decent enough place. Could do with a half-decent football team mind..

 

[Reading Posh]

Reading's okay, but there's little to distinguish it from any number of other towns/cities of a similar size.

The best that can be said for it is it's own employment options and those that are easily accessible in London and along the M4 corridor.

On the downside - none of the delivery food outlets reach my village south of the M4

 

[readingstockport]

Royal, Whitley Street is not really Whitley now is it

Whitley has it's bad areas but bizarely enough I find it fine.

No-one in my area gives me any grief, that could have something to do with the fact that they all know I teach martial arts though

 

[Reading Posh]

Royal, Whitley Street is not really Whitley now is it

Whitley has it's bad areas but bizarely enough I find it fine.

No-one in my area gives me any grief, that could have something to do with the fact that they all know I teach martial arts though

Does it still whiff?

 

[readingstockport]

Does it still whiff?

Not been too bad this year, I've not noticed it to be honest.

New treatment plant opened earlier this year and (touch wood) it's ok.

 

[Spiros]

Went to Reading Uni in the 80s. Lived part of the time on campus and part in a dump of a house near Cemetery Junction. Frankly the town struck me as a bit of a tip and on the few visits back there since I came back to Sussex my impressions have not improved. In my last year there I managed to get myself beaten up by a carload of squaddies for the 'crime' of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The area where I lived also saw frequent trouble between two separate asian factions, so there was always a freshly burnt out house or car to look at and a permanent smell of burning in the air. I don't think I'll ever bother trying to move back there

 

[eastlondonseagull]

As I say, it what I wrote was a huge sweeping statement, but I just got this nasty vibe from the whole place. I wasn't in Whitley, no, was actually only a 15 minute walk from the Oracle on Whitley Street, but just found it really 'towny'.

'Towny' is a bad word, I know, but maybe that's just cos I've spent most of my life in big cities, all over London, Liverpool and love that city vibe. I only ever lived in Brighton for two years as a kid. Reading just felt very insular. Ho hum.

 

[berkshire seagull]

Re: Re: Views on the town of reading!

Hmmm....lived in Moulsecoomb but didn't learn how to spell it. If I couldn't spell the name of the place that I'd lived in, I'd keep rather quiet about it rather than publicise the fact.

As for Reading, I'm spending the next weekend sampling the delights of the town as I shall be at WOMAD. I can't say I'm wild about the place, far too many modern developments for my liking and a town built for cars rather than for people.

I miss a lot of letters out as never check through

Womad yuk what a funny bunch of people they are grrrrr