Reading Roars!

I think I may have discovered a great hangover remedy: the humble doughnut. 

Thanks to several late-night sakes enjoyed with Sushi 108′s hyperactive talent Chris Allen, I was feeling a little less than bright and breezy on Saturday morning.  I needed an urgent fix, preferably non-alcoholic. 

Krispy Kreme was, for me, an unlikely destination. I normally go to places like Picnic, Workhouse Coffee (bit of a walk, though) and Caffe Nero, where I can order a muffin and read The Guardian.  However, a PR professional from Edelman contacted me the other day with information about KK and so I thought, why not? I’d give them a try.

My first impression was that KK was spotlessly clean and tidy.  I always get the impression that the Big 3 coffee chains offer environments crowded with tables, chairs, newspapers, CDs and lofty CSR statements.  Krispy Kreme felt different.  Focused, even.  It’s about the doughnut, right?

There was no doubt in my mind what the star of the Krispy Kreme show was.  KK’s doughnuts were meticulously arranged, looking like the fast food equivalent of a North Korean sound-and-light spectacular.  This was comforting.  If you are a little worse for wear, order is a very good thing.  Clutter is like a hammer to the brain.

There were many flavours to choose from, some less traditional than others.  I ordered a Maple Iced Glazed doughnut with a small cappuccino.  Sinking my teeth into the sweet plump thing felt like biting into Americana.  A very cheesy description, you might be thinking, but maple syrup is quintessentially North American.  The doughnut had an immediate impact, bringing me out of my zombified state and leaving somewhere closer to reality. 

As for the calories, well, I wasn’t too concerned. I played a round of golf in the afternoon and burnt a number this morning, clapping the Reading Half Marathon runners as they came into view.

If you are taking part in the Reading Half Marathon this Sunday, and looking forward to a treat at the end of the punishing trot, there is a Mongolia Benefit Night kicking off at 5pm in the 3Bs.

Mongolia Benefit Night, Susanne Koch tells me, will feature indie acoustic/funk musicians Stuart Dooley and The Foolish Galatians, and a curry meal can be had for a fiver.  There will also be an opportunity to show your support for the Khulsen Education Centre in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar during the evening.

I will be there, but I don’t deserve any curry: I will not be taking part in the run as I simply Genghis Khan’t do 13 miles.

Much has been said online about the cancellation of the Heavenly Planet festival. 

I’m disappointed, but I understand the decision.  There is still the Reading Festival to look forward to (we are blessed, aren’t we, in Reading) and I believe that the original global gathering, WOMAD, will go ahead as planned in its new Wiltshire site (which, dare I say it, is a far better location than Rivermead).

With the recession expected to continue into next year, in the UK at least, I suspect that we may not get to see the festival until 2011.

But why not organise our own fun?  You occasionally see bongoes and the like in European cities.  So how about a flashmob in Forbury Gardens?

Living Reading relaunched earlier this month, and it’s an improvement on the former site.  Funded by the Reading Marketing Group, the site aims to be:

the one place everybody heads when they need information on visiting, doing business or even moving to Reading.

I would suggest to interested parties that they also visit Reading Forum, Reading Chronicle and Evening Post websites (especially the former) for different perspectives, in addition to Living Reading.

What are your thoughts on the new Living Reading site (I’ve got nothing to do with this, by the way)?

A blog has been launched by the DrinksinReading.com team: drinksin Blog.

Their first, and so far only, entry is an entertaining writeup of a Friday night pub crawl, with the itinerary looking something like this: Global Cafe, Oakford Social Club, Afroba, Malmaison, After Dark and Mix Bar.

Would other local bloggers be interested in taking part in a similar crawl?  We can attempt the Ale Trail (remembering to drink responsibly, of course), then write about it.

I feel as if I’m breaking a rule here about posting something that has nothing to do with Reading.  It’s not something I like to do very often, but anyway…

Thinking about visiting or moving to Berlin?  My cousin, who moved to the German capital this month with girlfriend pANDA gIRL, has just launched a blog about the city called Big Bear Blogs…Berlin.

Could this be the start of a new family of city blogs?  H., if you are reading this, fancy starting a blog about Sydney?

Spring is definitely on its way, as confirmed by this weekend’s bumblebees, butterflies and brilliant sunshine.

Appropriately for the season of rebirth, The Lamb at Satwell, near Henley, slaughtered in the recession, will be reopening this Friday (20 March), just in time for Mother’s Day.  The fantastic country gastropub was closed by previous owner, celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson, last month.

The new owners are Chris and Emma Smith, who will be joined by a few faces from the previous team, including head chef Lukasz Ostaszewski.

Most main courses will be priced around a tenner.  There will be a new wine line list and “an increased emphasis on real ale” (yes!), described by Chris as his favoured tipple.

The Lamb joins Reading pub The Kennet Arms in making a comeback in difficult economic times.

Sometime mid-morning on Friday 13 March, a number of social media enthusiasts talked Twitter tactics over coffee as bemused Workhouse Coffee punters looked on.  It was the inaugural Thames Valley Social Media Cafe, held in Reading.

I’m not a great counter, preferring words, but I estimated there to be a dozen or so of us, including heavyweights (not literally) Neville Hobson and Drew Benvie, who both co-founded the event, skateboarding Steven Lamb from Microsoft, copywriter and friend John McGarvey, podcaster Andy Piper from IBM, and local PR business owners Nicky Davis and Catherine Warrilow.  It was quite a crowd.

Even Workhouse Coffee’s Greg Costello (who literally is a heavyweight) joined in the fun, showing interest in my BlackBerry and asking for my thoughts on the iPhone/iPod Touch.  According to Drew, Greg also had a Twitter account set up for him on the spot that morning.  Marvellous and marvellously simple.  You can follow Greg’s tweets here: www.twitter.com/itsridiculous

I chatted at length with Nicky Davis, who is at the helm of online news release distributor NeonDrum and consultancy EvokedSet.  Topics covered included Reading, refuse collections and Readipop CDs, as well as online PR.  As I finished my Brazilian (coffee) and downgraded to a cortado, I began another enjoyable conversation, with Catherine Warrilow, who runs Oxford-based company Warrilow PR.

I’d also spoken briefly with Steven Lamb (who led my kayaking lessons when I was at Microsoft), Andy Piper (who can teach me a thing or two about podcasting) and Adrian Moss (ditto).

For other (better) perspectives on the event, read the following posts:

• The first Social Media Cafe in the Thames Valley (Neville Hobson)
• Social Media Cafe comes to Thames Valley (Drew Benvie)
• Reading launches with first Tuttle (Catherine Warrilow)
• Thames Valley Twitterers hit Reading for coffee (John McGarvey)
• Thoughts on Thames Valley Social Media Cafe (Andy Piper)

Greg’s perspective, like his fantastic cortado, was short and sweet:

it was a wonderful morning in coffee house today. Thanks to the group of twitterers who held a gathering there. more news soon

Cllr Tony Jones said of local newspapers in Reading, “Whether we always like what they say or not, they are important to our community.” 

He’s right, of course.  I’m a firm believer that pubs are also important to a community, and the carnage in the countryside that I have seen recently has not exactly filled me with joy.  Take the brilliant Lamb Inn (Satwell), for example, now closed.  Another traditional country pub has become an Italian restaurant.  Another still, an Indian restaurant.

Pubs are an important part of our national culture.  They bring people together.  They are the so-called “third place”  (in Starbucks parlance) that we have enjoyed for centuries.  Then there is the beer itself…

I clicked on the Reading Chronicle headline “Pub’s new lease of life” within a nanosecond of it appearing on my screen.  A Southcote man, Steve Ellis, has reopened the Claddagh Ring pub, shut for more than a month, and brought back its original name, The Kennet Arms.

There is hope.

The big story of the week has to be the Guardian Media Group’s alarming announcement that the Reading Evening Post is to become a twice weekly newspaper.

Furthermore, up to 95 redundancies are planned across the Guardian Media Group’s Surrey and Berkshire Media division, with closures of two weekly titles (the Esher News & Mail and the Aldershot Mail).

The National Union of Journalists’s head of publishing Barry Fitzpatrick said of the decision

It is deeply worrying that in Reading the commitment to local news is being cut from a full week of papers to two days a week

Councillor Tony Jones agrees, saying on his blog:

I say that even in this fast moving age of websites and blogs, there must be room for strong daily and weekly local newspapers. Reading will be all the poorer if these cuts go ahead.

Encouragingly, a Facebook group has been created by Tony to help save newspaper journalism in Reading.   To date, 75 members have joined Save Reading’s Local Newspapers, including Cllr Richard Willis and Cllr Daisy Benson, who posted:

Well done for setting this up Tony – this came as a shock to me and will be a real blow to regular reporting of local issues that matter to people in Reading.

You can add yourself here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69050419902  

Oranjepan’s succinct analysis on his blog Reading List is worth a read also.