Is Reading The New Windsor ?

Where's the castle in Reading?

DS

right next to the Dog & Duck

According to a programme that was shown on Channel 4 the other day (presumably by mistake because what I saw of it was really interesting) I think we can equally reasonably ask if Reading is the new Dusseldorf.

The presenter of the programme (for reasons that I didn't really understand but which seemed to have something to do with the fact that Dusseldorf and Reading are "twinned") wanted the Dusseldorf-based photo-artist Andreas Gursky to visit Reading as a source of material for his work. In a bid to entice Gursky to Reading the presenter made his own Gurskyesque composition to show Gursky. It was a lot more interesting than I've made it sound, so anyone who missed it and is interested in art, photography - or offbeat programmes - might find it worth looking out for in case it's ever broadcast again.

I'm sorry this isn't exactly the amusing reply that was probably wanted for this thread but I cannot think of even one amusing thing to say about Reading.

Neither can I. I did a trip round England a few years ago and now I'm programmed so that whenever I hear the word "England" I flashback to a Saturday morning spent at the Reading shopping centre watching track-suited Cro-Magnon blokes dragging matching track-suited slappers around by their hair, and shops where you have to take the number of the item you want to buy to a rude collection window. It was a nightmare of macho consumerist desperation. Yuk.

It's better than Swindon.

At least our cro-Magnon blokes aren't quite as menacing as yours.

It's not as good as Wellington

If you like your crack and coke with drunken underpaid stressheads, together with a healthy dose of ratial tension, mugging, burglary and ridiculously OTT houseprices, whilst also being at the mercies of Virmin, Worst Great Western, and Sloppy Wasters Trains/clogged M4 in your bid to escape, Reading's ace!

I got out of there in August and the only things I miss are The Sound Machine (the one redeeming factor of Reading - in the Harris Arcade!) and my mates.

Neanderthel (sp?) Man is living and well in Reading - but if you want really grim go to Bracknell - it's a real hole. They've tried to artsy fartsy it up by installing an M&S, but they could really do with enlargements to Elizabeth Duke (for those huge hoop earrings), Mothercare (for the rash of unemployed single mums with free council houses (AND DON'T START on me here - if you don't believe this happens - go to Bracknell's Great Hollands and see for yourself!)) and the sports shops, for the dodgy tracksuits so beloved of the underdog

Oh - and at least Reading has the HobGoblin - a great real ale pub - another thing in its favour. So that's 2 things for versus infinity against!

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Suprise !!!
Wow, I do seemed to have opened a can of worms, innit ! So it's near Ali G
country as well, that explains a lot ? Düsseldorf is a clean, smart, but
exceptionally boring place in great contrast to it's Catholic close by neighbour
Cologne (Köln), Düsseldorf being a Protestant town like Berlin and as you are
all most likely aware the original discovery place of our famous Neanderthal
Man, or (Fulham Supporter) as we say in East London ? Charlottenburg the part of
this City I live in is twinned with London's Lewisham (also a hot spot ) and
Spandau with Luton, strangely enough.
When the wall first came down, a real rough
spot in East Berlin, which makes both Reading & Swindon look like Aspen,
seriously tried to twin itself with Beverly Hills would you believe, even the
Cousins got quickly wise to that one and diplomatically declined the offer with
intent² pronto. Respekt to those that have left Reading, and keep it real all of
you, looking forward to watching the Christmas edition of "The League of
Gentlemen" on Germna tv tonight believe it or not !!! (That's a Monty
Phythonesque Welshish, rennaissance British comedy series), a small village
that's not too unlike Swindon actually.

Fritz Von Aye

Graham Ricketts

Reading, Düsseldorf, Cro-Magnon, Neandertal - strange how things come together.

In case you didn't know it, Neandertal man is named after the Neandertal, the valley of the Neander, a small river (more of a brook, really), as it was in this valley where the first fossils of this cul de sac in the evolution of man were found.

The Neandertal is very close to Düsseldorf. Dom says the last remnants of the supposedly extinct species, Neandertal man, now reside in Reading. Reading and Düsseldorf are twinned.

Coincidence? I think not.

quote:

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Originally posted by Joolz:
what about the imigrants dom... go on you know you want to

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I covered that in "racial tension" - Reading doesn't seem to have a massive problem with asylum seekers anyway - I can't think why...

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.

Maybe not but some might say slough is (Windsor meadows).

Stuart

I feel a bit guilty about slagging off Reading. We stayed in a really nice part of the city bordered by very pretty countryside. I guess we assumed that Reading was generally nice so were a bit taken aback when after driving into the shopping center on Saturday morning and parking our car in a piss-soaked, graffiti emblazoned hi-rise, we were confronted with a scene from National geographic.

Minky,

I don't understand the comment- "scene from National Geographic". Can you explain?

I just got the feeling that I was in the midst of some weird sociological experiment that had gone badly wrong. It was really fucked up, dark and unhappy. The reason for my trip was to see if the deep sense of belonging that I felt for England (having been born, left, returned for a year at the age of 10, left again) was based on something other than nostalgia. I came back to NZ with my sense of belonging completely redefined.

Okay, but what about this cro-magnon/ neandertal stuff? Who specifically are you talking about? I've never been to Reading nor Windsor, so I'm trying to get the gist.

I dunno, maybe I got the wrong end of the stick. Maybe on the morning in question they were having a huge theme day and no one told me and maybe if I went back today I would find it completely different, but everyone seemed to be wearing shiny Soccer/Gansta rap style tracksuits (couples
matching). The females were mousy accoutrements to the males who appeared to be grunting and dragging their knuckles along the ground. Eye contact was made at peril of death.

There are places like this in NZ where the marginalised and disenfranchised find solace and meaning by devolving back to caveman like behavior. If you can't live by the pen ..

BYW Windor is nothing like Reading. Windsor is like a giant cake.

Here in Sweden it's Västervik.

Proof: Björn of ABBA was born there. And what does he look like (particulary with a beard)?

JohanR

A recent comment attributed to Bill Clinton ? I found interesting "Is Seattle the New Vermont ?"
The red headed girl in ABBA was born in Norway wasn't she ? being one of the so-called Nazi children that became thrown away by society as little babies ?
Fritz Von Stavanger

Graham Ricketts

quote:

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The red headed girl in ABBA was born in Norway wasn't she ? being one of the so-called Nazi children that became thrown away by society as little babies ?

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It was Frida. Don't know if you call her red-head or not. Her mother managed to move to Sweden when she was very young. Of course, now she's a princess, and in Germany too!

Agneta was born in my current home town, Jönköping. There is talk about her always getting drunk and crying at parties, bla. bla.

JohanR (A Swedish brand of conserved, raw fish is called Abba!)

JohanR

My kinda girls.
Fritz Von Kräftwerk

Graham Ricketts

Now I know where people go when Sky Tv's Richard Littlejohn takes his winter break !!!

Fritz Von Luvvlyjubbly.

Ps Sorry for the esoteric nonsense to those non British/Sky Viewers out there ! left mesen open or what ?

Graham Ricketts