Reading Roars!

Returning to the subject of ‘cool’, I have to mention London St’s Global Cafe again, an island of cool in a sea of sameness.

I was there on a Thursday night recently and the music drifting from the speakers was captivating.  I was told that the artists were Anoushka Shankar, daughter of Ravi;  Goran Bregović, a guitarist from Sarajevo; and Esma Redžepova, a Roma singer and songwriter.  Is there anyone reading who can share this music with me?

I suspected that a standard class rail ticket for an early morning journey from Reading to Swansea (and back on Friday evening) was not going to be cheap. But £153?! The figure floored me. Even the lad serving me behind the bullet-proof glass at Reading Station had a chuckle.

Put it this way: I paid less to fly to Istanbul (on the edge of Europe) and back last November. At a little more than double the price, I paid for a return ticket to Bangkok, covering a total distance of some 12,000 miles.

Frankly, £153 to go to Wales and back (with no complimentary newspaper or packet of peanuts) is shocking. Despicable. How much would a peak-time rail journey to Inverness cost? How much to go by first class?

I chose to travel in the evening instead, paying a more sensible £57.

Numerous media commentators have recently said that London is the new capital of the world, replacing New York. Now that may or may not be true. Certainly the UN, whose headquarters are based in the Big Apple, isn’t what it used to be, and London is said to be the centre of the financial and business world. However, public transport in the capital is still shockingly bad, prices are ridiculously high and its pubs still close early.

Anyway, world capital status is an opinion, after all, and I doubt that many people will care all that much anyway, apart from proud New Yorkers (and possibly Parisians).

Now, n miles west of London is a prosperous town we all know and love: Reading. If our humongous neighbour to our right is now capital of the world, indeed “coolest city on earth” as James Harding today put it in The Times, what does that make little Reading? Surely there must be repurcussions of some sort?

Reading has unquestionably become more cosmopolitan in recent years, with a more diversified population, and cosmopolitanism is cool. The London effect can be seen on the high street, too, with the arrival of Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Wagamama (still no Borders, however), and there are bigger businesses in the town, spread around the M4 umbilical cord. But overall I would say that while there has been a rippling effect, London still feels very different (where is our street theatre, or our sushi bar with conveyor belt?).

London seems more, I’d argue, like a city state, unlike anywhere else in the UK, with its arms crossed.

In my opinion, while Reading should benefit from London’s economic success, the town must not lead a parasitic existence. We have a great opportunity to forge our own identity - as a regional capital. Reading must assert itself as capital of the Thames Valley and capital of the South East (London aside). Let’s have a flourishing arts scene, another world-class music festival, a WiFi network that we can use for free all over the town centre. Let’s use our rivers more.

We can make Reading cool too.

As you can see, I’ve made a few changes to this blog.

Gone is the old Oracle (shopping complex, not technology giant) header graphic: I have now introduced a brighter, more colourful banner showing Reading’s ornate facades. Similarly, I’ve left behind a tight, cramped template in favour of one that is broader and more spacious, hopefully making the blog easier to read and use.

Other changes include:

• A widget-friendly sidebar. A widget wha’? Of course, I don’t mean the plastic things you sometimes get inside beer cans, but cool interactive elements that can be added to a website. These might be, for example, a Flickr plug-in for showing images, or a tag cloud (something I intend to deploy soon), depicting the site’s categories in a different way.
• A horizonal nav bar, placed at the top of the blog.
• A two column theme. I’ve dropped the third column (or first, depending on your perspective), as Google AdSense simply wasn’t delivering (I was hoping for a little more than USD 5 in 12 months). It made no sense to keep AdSense.
• A different style. Links are red (contradicting, I guess, a basic law of usability). I may change this, but then red is the colour I’d most associate Reading with (for it’s name, it’s streets and it’s Victorian buildings).

It’s a start and there will be more changes to come. Please let me know if there is something that you feel I should include/exclude/change.

Another quality blog with a Reading connection is the well-designed Dayorama, launched way back in 2002 (a long time in internet years!).

Dayorama is a site made up of contributions from four talented individuals.

Journalist Ollie Williams is a member of BBC Radio Berkshire’s online team and has recently been blogging about Reading Rockets, the local basketball force.

Working alongside Ollie is Reading-born broadcaster David Sheppard, the last of the blogging Fab Four to join Dayorama. The other two contributors are trainee lawyer Amy and OJ, who works for an MP.

Like Scaryduck, Dayorama offers that little bit extra: a t-shirt shop with tops for boys and girls (guys, you can have your hamster back tomorrow, ok?).

I was pleasantly surprised to see Reading Roars! mentioned in a BBC - Berkshire feature about blogging. The focus of the article was, however, on another local blog I hadn’t come across before, the award-winning and absolutely quackers Scaryduck, maintained by Alistair Coleman.

Scaryduck is eccentric British humour at its best (up there with Monty Python and The League of Gentlemen), offering bizarre observations, podcasts and a downloadable game called “Scaryduck done a poo” (a game that involves unloading avian faecal matter for points - my highest score was 275).

There are many others, of course, but the following are the best of the bunch, in my opinion:

Business

• Steve Clayon: Geek in Disguise - Steve is a Microsoft man. Great if you want to know what’s happening in the technology world
• Drew B’s take on tech PR - A blog about blogs. if you want to know about the wacky world of web 2.0 and social media, start here

Sport

• http://royal4ever.livejournal.com/ - Stacey Cross shows tremendous passion for Reading FC

Media

• Reading Chronicle Blog - Behind the scenes at the local newspaper

Politics

• Janestheone - a candid blog from the former Reading politician

Other

• NEVERHAPPY.com - All about the nation’s favourite subject, property

Reading FC visited one of the “Big Four” on Saturday - poetic Arsenal - and fortunately I was there, thanks to my friend, and lifelong Arsenal follower, John McGarvey. Cheers John!

Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal have been one of the most exhilarating teams to watch in recent years, from The Invincibles to the reinvented and exuberant side of the present, characterised by youth. They’d played Reading already in the season and gave them an absolute thumping. I wasn’t expecting such a decisive defeat this time.

The first thing that struck me when I took my seat close to the pitch at the hugely impressive Emirates was the size of the crowd. A little more than 60,000 had turned up to see the Gunners take on Reading (still one of the smaller teams in the league). Respect.

The contingent of Reading fans, a swathe of blue and white, was pretty small, but highly vocal when they needed to be (they were also much more vocal outside the ground). When they did pipe up, their chanting was met with the derision of Arsenal fans.

While Reading players were the main attraction for me, I was excited to see the red-and-white shirts of Arsenal exiting the tunnel. Thierry Henry, the star draw, wasn’t playing, but teen Catalan sensation Cesc Fábregas was there, as were Brazilian internationals Julio Baptista and Gilberto Silva.

The first half was dominated by Arsenal. However, while they teased and prodded, Reading remained resilient and the 45 minutes passed drearily.

The second half told a different story. There was much more zip and intent to Arsenal’s play.

In one breathtaking moment, Baptista released the ball to Fábregas, who had a glorious chance to put the Gunners ahead. But he fumbled the opportunity and Reading were safe. Moments later, Cesc’s miss was forgotten, with Gilberto converting a penalty after Andre Bikey brought down Gael Clichy.

Arsenal, and Fábregas in particular, were now ruling the midfield and a second goal came from the foot of a darting Baptista, who was fed by yet another Brazilian, young Denilson.

Reading made changes and once again showed grit in the closing minutes of the game, prompting some excited comments from jittery Arsenal fans behind me. I thought it amazing that they should criticise Baptista, a forward who, while not scintillating, had cemented Arsenal’s lead.

Fábregas, so influential during the game, ironically presented the Royals with an 87th minute goal, as he accidentally knocked the ball into the net from a John Oster corner. Confident Reading continued to push forward and Steve Sidwell nearly brought the score level (but for a Lehmann save). The game thus ended a respectable 2-1.