Reading Roars!

You are browsing the archives of 2008 June.

Local online dating site Datereading.com will be relaunching on 21 July.  New features will include, we’re told:

Video chat
SMS messages to members
Advanced search facilities
Weekly events
A Polish language option

Good luck to Faarhad and team (and to all those looking for a relationship, of course)

Again, it’s been a while since I last posted on this blog (though I have continued to provide updates on Twitter).  I have been out and about, doing this, that and the other - including recording fab new Roarcasts (= Reading Roars! podcast episodes) at Mix cocktail bar and Sushi One0eight.  More on these soon…

Fewer First Great Western customers have been complaining about late trains, according to regional station manager Steve Lewis.  Instead, complaints were about how the train operator “were going to improve the comfort on the services”. 
I agree that comfort can be an issue. This morning, for example, I stood inches from other standing passengers as my [...]

What makes a town unique?  It is said that the people make the town.  It is true of Reading, in my opinion, derided by some outsiders who describe it as “soulless” or a “commuter town” (quite a derogatory tag). 
There really is more to Reading than a busy railway station, commercial high street and shopping centres.  There are buzzing personalities who [...]

The Evening Post has commented on the chilling mannequins in the window of town centre store Jacksons and their subsequent disappearance (”Little shop of horrors“). 
I walk past the famous Reading shop almost every day and couldn’t help but notice the beady eyes and knowing smiles of the Victorian-looking children behind the glass.  Fellow Reading blogger Wendy [...]

I am experiencing Facebook fatigue at the moment (all those walls <sigh>), so have focused my attention on the microblogging service Twitter (think Facebook status updates).  
I’d signed up a while back after reading social media expert and Reading resident Drew Benvie’s blog, but didn’t see the appeal.  Well, I see the appeal now, a late entrant as always.
You can [...]

A 5km walking/running challenge is to be held at Palmer Park on Sunday 6 July in aid of Sense, the deafblind charity.  If you think 5km is not much of a challenge, you can try the race blindfolded (with the help of a guide).  
For more information, ring 01372 840321 or contact Ed Charles at [...]

I have been checking out veevow (don’t you just love these Web 2.0 names?), an online video playlist site that launched just 10 days ago. 
Veevow, founded by former Reading PhD student Dr Matthew Ryan (I’m told that the veewow team is very fond of The Oracle), allows you to build YouTube video playlists.  I gave it a [...]

I have found top-drawer musical talent in Reading - via YouTube.  Watch this brilliant video posted by the classically-named schubert06.  Lyrics follow.

 
Why did Fulham have to score?
Only twenty minutes more and we’d have kept the hoards at bay.
Or some other Lita strikes and we’d have lived again to fight
Because goal difference wouldn’t matter anymore.
Our dreams [...]

I will be using pun-free headlines from now on. 
Thinking about it, half of my previous headlines with what I thought was cleverly-engineered wordplay didn’t really work anyhow (several headlines I wrote many months back now appear baffling to me).   Now I will try to make them as relevant as possible.