Reading Roars!

First Great Western’s Chief Operating Officer will be facing questions tomorrow evening from councillors and the public about the performance of the operator’s rail services between Reading and London. 

The Special Scrutiny Meeting on First Great Western Performance will take place at 7pm at the Old Town Hall’s Victoria Hall.

You can submit your question in writing via the Council website, or simply contact Cllr Ricky Duveen.

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 Reading to Paddington journey lasted 50 minutes (due to the usual signalling problems). 

Also uncomfortable is news that Network Rail bosses are to be awarded enormous bonuses (totally unacceptable, given what we have to put up with) and that weekend engineering works are expected to continue for several more years. 

All in all, still not looking good if you are a customer.

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]

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 described the spine-chilling feeling thus (”Jacksons: mannequins“):

A child mannequin in a tutu appears to watch you with evil eyes… …she scared me…  …intrigued me…

Thank goodness they are gone (though there has been no mention of this on the Jacksons blog).  They really were better placed on the set of a horror production.