h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Reading is well known for it's poor road quality, though. The Half Marathon Runners (of which I will be one next year) say that the roads are the worst in the country. I often take my chances on the Kings Road on my gallant Honda CG125, and it isn't much of a giggle. I was thinking of getting a horse.

Exactly how big is the Oracle planning to get? It must be visible from Jupiter by now.

And why is nobody in it ever happy? It just seems to be a large machine that turns Sky 1 viewers into cash.

To bring things a little more up to date. Compaq have been taken over by HP and are still resident in the town. Yes, traffic is still a problem but thanks to a change in local bus fares and tickets, more people are using the buses. There are park & ride schemes to the Madjeski stadium and to Winnersh Triangle. The Boars Head, although an old pub, a real dive at the end. Purple Turtle still going strong although it has moved from it's original site. There are lots of bars and pubs to choose from in the town.

The Oracle is very popular and some Saturdays you can see coaches from other towns bringing people for shopping expeditions.

London Street Brasserie, very good food & lovely atmosphere.

I realise that Reading is not all good or all bad. I would agree that take away Whitley and Whitley Wood would be a god send & I would add Oxford Road area as well. I like to cut them off the face of the earth. Prostitution has now become a problem in Oxford Road area, not helped by the sex shops you can find there.

Like all places it has pockets of nice places and eyesores in others.

It's a growing place with many flats and apartments being built in and around the town centre now. It experiences growing pains.

I moved to Reading in 1999, I hated it at first but that was because I moved from Winchester. Gradually I grew to like it and now that I no longer live in Reading (I live in Worcestershire) I miss it. It is great for shops, lovely and near to London, has a great new football stadium, some lovely countryside and fantastically multi-cultural. I'd move back!

I liked living in Reading too.
My favourite has be the all the parks by the Thames, they were all lovely in the summer, and a great place to ride your bike. I used to live north of the Thames and worked in the Thames Valley Business Park, so I always rode my bike to work. It was a fantastic ride along a really beautiful river. (I had tried public transport to get to work but it used to take forever to get along Kings Road and past Cemetary Junction along London Road.)

See what I mean? Reading's idea of a landmark: the cemetery!

It's not all bad, of course. We have a velodrome, which is pretty cool. The Oracle, though, is a carbuncle and has defeated my every attempt to spend money there.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what happens when Chatham Place goes up. And when they put a lid on the IDR (ring road). The North West end of town might actually get a revamp.
Also has anyone seen the shoddyness of whats been happening to the Forbury Gardens? The brick work in the walls around it is attrotious!
Still, it should turn 'alright' in the end I guess...