Reading Roars!

You are browsing the archives of 2008 March.

Thames Valley Economic Partnership (TVEP) has suggested the following to reduce M4 congestion (”Businesses demand 21st century transport“):

A motorway monorail linking Reading with Heathrow
New toll lanes between the M4’s J4 and J13; and
Underground busways on special tracks

TVEP’s Shaun Whitaker explains:
Our vision is for an integrated transport system that enables efficient travel by rail, bus or car across the Thames Valley [...]

How well do you know Reading, in Berkshire that is!!!?
I thought I knew a fair bit until I took this Facebook quiz created 30 days ago this afternoon - and scored just 83% (in a stuttering 3 minutes 18 seconds). Thankfully, I beat the average score (76%).
The highest scoring participant achieved a perfect 23 out [...]

I can’t help but feel that Reading deserves better on Tripadvisor. The town’s top-rated attraction is listed as Marks and Spencer, ahead of Silchester, Basildon Park and Mapledurham House (attractions that aren’t actually in Reading, but located just outside the town).
The M&S Broad St store has a TripAdvisor Traveler Rating of 4/5 and 3 reviews, [...]

I have been reading the terrific book The Undercover Economist. In it, author Tim Harford writes:
When I am in Antwerp, sitting just off the Grote Markt and enjoying a Duvel, I cannot help but feel a little sad that this thrill has been cheapened by its ready availablity in my home city. Of course, [...]

I popped into Workhouse Coffee this afternoon for a Brazilian (coffee, not bikini line treatment) and saw that they had a sign with the following profound Gandhi quote:
if you want to change the world, you have to be that change
Very inspiring and very true.

The picture below, snapped today, is of a sign prominently displayed inside Marks and Spencer’s Simply Food store at Reading Station. The message on the sign includes a glaring typo:
since 2002 we have only used free range in absoultely [sic] all our food
Astonishingly, this has remained on display since January (I’ve only just got round [...]

Returning to the subject of remarkable products and services (”Purple Cow Picnic: Unperturbed by Starbucks next door“), the Zerodegrees lot are offering speciality beers in two new flavours: passion fruit and honey (looking a little like stale urine but tasting, I’m sure, a whole lot better).
So far, the various novelty beers introduced by Zerodegrees have [...]

New Tory transport plans include mention of the town’s waterways (”Vision for transport includes river power“):
Reading is blessed by having two major rivers running through it. The Thames and the Kennet (Kennet and Avon Canal) are under-used resources for transporting both people and goods and could provide an enjoyable alternative to driving.
I considered this opportunity [...]

The Picnic people aren’t bothered about Starbucks opening next door (I had to ask). Thinking about it, I reckon that Costa have more to worry about. I’d say that Picnic is a “purple cow” (defined by marketing guru Seth Godin as a product or service that is remarkable), and that Costa and Starbucks (more like [...]

Further to my previous post about the opening of (yet) another Starbucks outlet, we apparently do want more coffee in our town centres (and airports, hospitals, theme parks, workplaces…). According to recent research, the UK coffee shop market is predicted to nearly double in size over the next 10 years. That’s an awful lot of [...]