Dan tells me about Reading...

I'm going to Reading twice in the next week or so; once on Friday on work business, and once again next week for Womad. In the pub, stewing on our pints, I asked Dan, "so, what's Reading actually like?".

For a few minutes he looked down at his pint and said nothing. And then this was what he said...

"I know where the epicentre of new Labour, corporate, consumerist blandness lies. I know it well. It's in Reading, Berkshire.

I have found myself having the same recurrent daydream recently, where I am on the BBC2 show Room 101 and Paul Merton asks me what I would like to condemn forever to that room in Broadcasting House made famous by Orwell. I quite enjoy it really, so many things leap into my thoughts of what I think the world would be better without - SUVs, this morally corrupt and tiresome Labour government, Razorlight... but the one thing that leaps higher than the rest is the town that I grew up near, Reading. My simple but long held grudge against the place is that despite its affluence and its growing population it can’t rise above the terminal blandness and ‘middle Englandness’ it seems to have always had.

OK, a little history. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s Reading was described as the ‘average town of Britain’. Well deserved too, for had you visited this town during this period you would have witnessed the badly planned emergence of a country market town into what its leaders hoped would be a regional commercial and transport hub.

Situated nearly midway on the M4 corridor between London and Bristol, Reading did grow rapidly and succeeded in attracting businesses to central Berkshire. Hordes of the middle classes followed (my family included) and the suburbs swelled and merged with surrounding villages. The town built amongst other projects what was called the ‘Inner Distribution Road’ (or IDR for those from the ‘Ding) smashing through poor neighbourhoods and linking together larger roads in its path. The citizens of Reading could now visit their concrete Civic monstrosities - such as the Hexagon theatre - with comparative ease. Or they could go to… well that’s about it really. Since the closure of its last live music venue there’s been nowhere for a mid to large sized band to play. The arts centre in the town's south keeps a small flame burning but Reading doesn’t generally seem to be put out by it’s loss.

The town points to the fact that it hosts the Reading and Womad festivals and true enough they are long standing fixtures, but they are both located away from the town centre and you would be hard pressed to find any representation of either of them around town aside from going in to HMV to buy tickets. Womad even advertises itself as being held in Rivermead, not Reading. The music Reading likes is heard coming out of its late license bars on Friday and Saturday whilst Bouncers outside places with names like The Ice Bar and Reflex check to see if you are wearing smart shoes and an obligatory shirt from Top Man or H&M.

Argh!

Reading is rubbish… Reading is awful local radio. Jingles for ‘Reading Bedding’ and local car dealerships are built around Robbie Williams songs which then echo down the streets and in the shops.

It is bored and dissatisfied young people planning their escape, it’s a football club who plays in a shed resembling an out of town B&Q and whose torrid home games with their dire atmosphere are (ahem) bound to take the Premiership by storm this season.

Reading is bland office blocks dominating the sky line which are filled with no-name insurance companies. Reading is the ability to build yet more blandness whilst not realizing the towns’ already major flaw. Reading is ensuring its population is enslaved to the pursuit of owning every little desirable commodity bought from its multitude of retail outlets (found of course everywhere else) and filling its 4 bedroom houses above the level of the dado rails with stuff nobody needs. Reading is the uncomfortable mix of new highly paid IT workers and their families mixing (or not) with the working classes of the west of the town.

Reading is a rip off, Reading is unfriendly, Reading is in a rush to purchase and then to get home.

There is thankfully a resistance movement to the all encompassing blandness, though. Small bands of the resistant hang out in some of the very few independent bars. As you enter one of these you are given a knowing smile as if you too have survived the street fighting outside, made it in and are amongst friends now. I remember the Friends Solidarity Centre and café Iguana in the town being like this. There is then perhaps hope.

I wonder that if John Betjeman was alive today he may be inspired to write something like;

Come friendly Hezbollah rockets and fall on Reading!
You can start maybe with Reading Bedding…

Sorry Reading, I wish you well but you really are the pits."

Thanks Dan!!