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

Reading has possibly the most cynical and apathetic population in this country.

Given a new shopping centre costing in the region of £100 million, letters to the local rag complained about the shiny floor tiles.

Given a new football stadium at the cost of £25 million, letters to the local rag about the size f the car park.

Handing out fifty pound notes in Broad Street would probably raise complaints from people who were really after 85p for the bus.

OK, so there's dreadful traffic. Take the bus. Ride a bike. I do. We get the best bands in the world coming to the town at least twice a year for the festival and Womad, we've got a decent town centre and a footie club that's going places (like Peterborough). How many towns can boast a real live dead king which they've managed to lose somewhere in the Abbey grounds ? And how many towns locked up Oscar Wilde and Stacey Keach ?

Home (at one stage or another) to Kate Winslet, Kenneth Branagh, Mike Oldfield, Janet Reger, Lenny Henry, Dawn French, Nigel Starmer-Smith, and one of the greatest mass-murderers of the nineteenth century.

Where would you rather live ? Swindon ? Basingstoke ?

Thankyou Zico!

Lenny and Dawn, have a Red front door by the way, I've delivered a leaflet to their house once... Down in Spencers Wood...

Yes Readingensieans (ye olde local dialect for bloke from redding) are definitely very cynical. Mainly I think because about 95% of the popullation have only been here two generations, and there world consists of work, home, shops, pub......

At least we have some life in Reading! Swindon, has about as much life as an amoeba. And Baisingstoke has that huge great horrible ring road! As for Slough, actually I guess it smells as bad as Reading, so I'll let it off....

The Football team, well I still say it's all Bradfords fault!

Reading's train station is MUCH nicer than Basingstoke's...

And they're going to pull it all down and start again!

Are they? What, Reading or Basingstoke?
If Reading, that explains why the "temporary" boarding has been there for who knows how many years...

Reading, and yes it does!

Kate Winslet is from Stoke Row, not even in the same county.

Well reading has a Rock Festival

That's moot. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are not, in my book, a rock band.

Yes, but who cares about Kate Winslet?

Jim what'shisname?

Yes, but who care about Jim what'shisname?

Presumably Kate Winslett

*Tries to laugh... but fails *

It's not so bad. I lived in Slough for ten years, dodging the 'What are you looking at?' merchants in the High Street every day. I'm telling you, Reading could be a lot worse. And if Whitley disappeared, the effect on sportswear, double buggy and Superkings sales would be devastating.

There is the story of the stray German bomber which dropped its boms on Reading by accident, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of improvements....

You call what they built where the old corn exchange used to be "an improvement"!!!??? It's the smelliest part of the Town... apart from, chatham street carpark, near the old bus depo (the old, not the old,old) and bits of friar street
I shouldn't moan about the Cornexchange building, considering my dad helped build it... ... Oooo... plus the did "finally" rebuild the bit of the town hall which got demolished.... and put a pub in it... how typical...

True... If whitley didn't exist, JD-Sports would have no more customers.. and PC-World wouldn't have to have so many security guards...

I think we need to start including posts in tags. The point is that flattening the town centre could only make it better.

The real problem with Reading is that to get form one side to the other you have to go through the middle, there being no bypass, but the council resents anyone who even wants to own a car so they make this as difficult as possible.

Some years ago they tried a one-way system on King's Road (yes, that is the A4). It caused chaos. Now they're trying it again. Traffic volumes have increased dramatically since then and guess what? So has the chaos that this crap idea causes.

Most people driving through Reading would rather be on a bypass. Let's have one.

I don't know that building new roads all the time will solve the problem, although I must say that Reading seems to be consistantly at a standstill. Yes, the King's Road is a bit of a shambles, and full of punchy shirtboys at the weekend.

I often get the 16 bus from the train station, which goes through lovely Whitley. It's like being at the bloody zoo.

I don't really have that much respect for Martin Salter or whoever Reading East's MP is, they both NEVER listen to people...
The Kings Road Scheme was VERY strongly opposed, by me aswell partly cos I have a house just over the road from the college, and getting to it is now even more ridiculous... Traffic levels in that area have sky rocketed... the London Road(A4 past the RBH) is just SO much more busy than it ever used to be, and those stupid island things are terrible, I've seen people not realise they're there and swerve into the left lane, only to have near misses with other cars... Kings road isn't any better, they haven't done a thing about road quality... (I ride a motorbike) Down the bus lanes most of the time, and I'm considering getting a scrambler, just because of the total shoddyness of the road quality...
Oh, and Phase 3 of the Oracle is total all that SPACE that used to be Deb's just wasted.. and an escalator and a cafe in it's place...


Whitley..... yes well... Why do you think they put the Madjetski down there... less distance for them to crawl...
(I Shouldn't insult Reading fans, as he is one )