Reading Roars!

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 give the town a distinctive identity, through their community deeds for example, or their running of independent cafes and historical pubs.

It is a theme that I am exploring with a new podcast series, Roarcasts.   In this series, I aim to find out through informal conversations what makes busy people (local business owners, artists and community leaders, for example) in Reading tick, why they do what they do in Reading (as opposed to anywhere else) and what they have planned for the future.      

The series begins with a chat with Tutu Melaku of Tutu’s Ethiopian Table, the Ethiopian restaurant and catering service based at Reading’s Global Cafe.  In Roarcast #1, Tutu revealed to me why she started Tutu’s Ethiopian Table, what her most popular dish is, the importance of Ethiopian coffee and more. 

Before going any further, I should add that I was inspired by podcasts giants Nick Saalfeld and Mike Southon with their Beermat Radio podcasts and Alex Bellinger of SmallBizPod fame.  As for the apparently curious name “Roarcast”  (sounding somewhat like “broadcast”), this was wittily suggested by Joff Hopkins of Reading 107 FM.

Without further ado, the running order for Roarcast #1 (11 minutes 10 seconds) is below.  Please let me know what you think.  It’s a first for me, so plenty of room for improvement!  At times you will hear the sound fade out and in.  It’s a fairly crude editing technique for when I want to snip certain sections, but I’m a newbie and expect to come up with something better.

• 00:00:00  Introduction
• 00:00:48  Tutu’s Ethiopian Table: how it started
• 00:02:46  About the food
• 00:03:29  Authenticity, Fair Trade and keeping it local
• 00:05:52  (Ethiopian) coffee and popcorn
• 00:07:30  The most popular dish
• 00:07:57  Global specials: food from other countries
• 00:09:00  Ethiopian music and dance
• 00:10:10  Tutu’s Ethiopian Table opening times

 Roarcast #1: Tutu Melaku and Tutu’s Ethiopian Table [MP3]

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.

I’ve been experiencing all sorts of technical issues in recent weeks. 

This blog was infected with spam links, my wireless network is on/off/on/off (mostly off) and my home computer is wheezing.  All very irritating, on a par with midges, outdoor advertising and public transport, and the reason why there have been few updates lately. 

Technology can be a wonderful thing, but it can also be so achingly unreliable. 

I’ve been doing a bit of spring (winter?) cleaning on this blog.  A number of other sites, mostly blogs, appear to have “died”, so I’ve deleted links pointing to these ghostly apparitions.  It’s a bit sad (only a bit) as these were once vibrant communities - and now they are gone.  Does any reader know of a blog cemetery?

Anyway, the entire Community category has now disappeared.  DateReading.com is “coming soon”, and Oxford Road Area Community Website and Talk Reading seem to be with us no longer (does anyone have information about these last two sites?).

I have been experiencing a problem with my email (I’m unable to receive messages).  This is currently being looked at and I believe that it will be working again soon-ish.

If you wish to send me a message in the meantime, please submit a comment below.

Looking at the latest Evening Post poll on their website, I see that 38% of respondents are not in favour of the Living Reading/Reading UK logo.  I don’t know how many have responded to the poll exactly, but 38% seems a substantial share.  What are your thoughts on the initiative?  I know this looks like a question posed by Marmite marketers, but do you love it or hate it?

I believe that the Reading brand is a step in the right direction (though I’m convinced also that the Reading FC badge has had a powerful effect overseas in drawing attention to the town).  I’ve added the Living Reading symbol to this blog (you can’t miss it!) and have just set up a new Facebook group featuring the new logo (cheeky?  You decide).  The Facebook group is here, by the way (don’t all rush at once): http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6018431886

Reading Roars! is now 2 years old.  I’ll probably have a pint this weekend to mark this unlikely anniversary.  Join me, if you like.

And now for a seemingly random and non-Reading related entry.  Are there any readers/bloggers here based in Vancouver, Canada?

An apology to those whose submitted comments have either appeared on the blog later than anticipated or not at all (I’m trudging through my inbox now).

I’m getting a tremendous amount of spam every day (mostly related to gambling, sexual enhancement drugs and mortgages - none of which I need), which is obscuring the messages that matter. I will look for a solution to deal with this problem. As a short-term measure, I will go through my inbox much more carefully.

Recently, I launched a Reading-themed portal (I’m not a Reading addict, honest). Preferring to keep things simple, I named the portal, ahem, ReadingPortal.

Now, before you all rush to Google this site, I must warn you that it really isn’t that good (not enough time in the day, you see). So, the reason I’m writing this now is because I’m looking for someone who would like to work on this projectette with me, in partnership (shared revenues). The objective is to make this a highly popular portal with Reading Netizens (and, of course, advertisers/commercial partners).

If you’re interested, please contact me with a brief proposal. You can visit the site now (please excuse me while I duck behind the sofa).