No, im not illiterate……

I’ll be down in Reading, Berks for a few days…. is there anything worth doing, seeing, any cool restaurants or bars worth a look???

No bike im afraid!

Thanks folks!

The Honeypot?

its shut………apparently….any others??

about sums Reading up micely!

is there anything worth doing, seeing

NO!

If you had the bike you could nip over to Swinley. Off the bike, well Reading’s a bit rubbish really. Perhaps pay Mountain-Trax a visit and admire the carbon blur / turner / intense bling.

Train to London?

1. Down to Swinley, hire a bikethere.
2. Come over, grass needs trimming 😉
3. London is good.
4. White Lightning by the river?

Visit either The Retreat or the Nags Head to get a real ale induced hangover. Thursday night in Gospoda for Polish karreokee is the biggest cultural draw!!!

Gorge Cafe, near Caversham Bridge – traditional full English with Polish flair ……….

Great slightly out of town Indian: Cinammon Tree (Upper Basildon I think). In town, Miahs Garden of Gulab.

Wander along Kings Road – some ok pubs. 3Bs in the Town hall – often has live music (esp Thu I think).

After Dark Club (? is it still going, bump and grind whilst stuck to the floor)

Calleva Roman site and ampitheatre – great on a sunny day, lie on your back in the middle and cloud surf between the trees.

Twyford vineyard used to do tours (*and samples)

Upper++ pub nosh (ie restaurant) – Black Boy on road between Henley/Maidenhead just on down side of hill from Henley)

Hairy Chested,

Your option 2 seems like the best so far!! 🙂

well let’s see: Cool Restaurants: Catch the train to Maidenhead, walk to Bray and there’s Heston’s Fat Duck or Hind Head Hotel, also the Roux brothers Waterside Inn (overpriced IMHO). Catch the train to Marlow and there’s the Hand and Flowers (Michelin star) or Vanilla Pod, you might also consider the Royal Oak near Holyport, but its a bit difficult to get to if you are on shanks’ pony. In Reading the London Street Brasserie is supposed to be ok, although I[ve no personal experience.

Things to do: Henley regatta is on fairly soon, ifyou want to spot upper class twerps looking ridiculous. You could catch the Stanley Spencer art gallery in Cookham to see some quintissential British art (get there by train). You could see if there’s anything on at the Hexagon in Reading, or alternatively at Southill park arts centre in Bracknell. Jazz club by the arches near the station. Take a boat trip down the Kennett and Avon Canal (hire a boat). Hell you could even get blind drunk and in a fight on Saturday night, or alternatively witness some driveby shooting on the Oxford Road.

well let’s see: Cool Restaurants: Catch the train to Maidenhead, walk to Bray and there’s Heston’s Fat Duck or Hind Head Hotel, also the Roux brothers Waterside Inn (overpriced IMHO). Catch the train to Marlow and there’s the Hand and Flowers (Michelin star) or Vanilla Pod,

I wonder how many of those you could get a table at without 2-3 months notice though?

Joe

JOe: nowehere near a 2 – 3 month waiting list, depending on what time/day you go.

Go to the fat duck

pick up a cheap tart along the Oxford Rd?

Reading is a bit of a cultural wasteland!

Yet still manages to be the best place for miles arround (night out in Camberley/Farnbrough anyone?)

JOe: nowehere near a 2 – 3 month waiting list, depending on what time/day you go.

Ah, maybe they are less trendy now* – a few years back when I was living in London, I called up and the fat duck was fully booked for 2 or 3 months (however many months ahead they take reservations), every sitting, every day.

Joe

*or maybe the mass food poisoning put people off

cinema ?

head over to coral reef world opposite the lookout and sit in a sauna with a load of russians?

Pubs,

Hobgoblin – One of the last the old pubs in town. Great beers, lots of character – answer a mobile phone inside at your peril!
Purple Turtle – complete mayhem to 4am
Rising Sun – near train station, bit like the Turtle but more old rockers and Goths here
Zero Degrees – pizzas and in-house beers. Cleaner than the rest
Green Man – Old pub

Food

Sweeney Todds – pie and ale – great!
London Street Brasserie – on the bridge, quite expensive but good.
Ninos – usual Italuian stuff in Market Place

If you’ve got wheels it’s worth nipping to Henley for a bit of food and beers by the river!

from the sound of it the only way you will be able to handle reading is to get completely wasted!

LOL! 😀

I lived there for a few years after I graduated and yes Kimbers that was exactly the approach I took!
Reading gets a lot of bad press but isn’t as bad as you’d think. True -it’s not the prettiest (some might say grim in parts) but there’s there enough to keep you interested for a few days…………and you don’t have to get hammered to enjoy a good pub

I live there, worse still my other half is a native!

The After dark is still going; I like a pint in Great expectations on the way there (When I used to be allowed out).

The Purple Turtle can be great fun too…

As is the Hobgoblin…

The 3 bees…

There are plenty of places to go…

However DO NOT go anywhere along friar street or visit the infamous club “Mango” (near st Mary’s Butts) unless you consider being stabbed and being vomited on by 16 year old chavs a good night out (sometimes simultaneously)…

If you’re eating out on expenses:

I quite like Kyrenia (Greek restaurant in Caversham)
Or for reasonable semi-gastro Pub Grub and Real ale there is The Griffin (Also in Caversham)
If you are a bit more mobile the Row Barge (out at Woolhampton, along the A4 or national cycle routes) is nice and you get to sit out by the Kennet canal wearing sunglasses and eyeing up Fit, Rich, totally unattainable Women.

Had you remembered your bike, Mountain High organise evening rides from Pangbourne, just email them for details (if you ever wind up trapped in Reading again…) or Swinley is local and there are a far, plus there are a few local woods worth an explore…

But yes you are basically trapped in Hell.. Good Luck…

For any intrested parties in the reading area:

Friday 3rd July 4pm
at the offices of the Crown Prosecution Service, Eaton Court, 112 Oxford Road, Reading, Berkshire RG1 7LL.

The CPS offices are close to the town centre, at the very start of the Oxford Road:
http://www.multimap.com/s/dTHxDXWR

Below is a text which we have composed explaining the protest, which we will be using as a hand-out leaflet, and basis of a press release.

Why we are here today: Anthony Maynard, killed at Bix, 2008.

We are members of Reading Cycling Club, gathered here this afternoon in a quiet protest or short vigil in memory of our fellow cyclist Anthony Maynard, who was killed by a van driver exactly a year ago on the A4130 north of Henley.

We make our protest at the Thames Valley offices of the Crown Prosecution Service, whose officers last year inappropriately, remissly, and to our minds unforgivably decided that the van driver who struck Anthony (and his companion) from behind would not face charges. We did not, and do not hold Anthony’s life so cheap.

Our protest is on behalf of all cyclists. Almost uniquely in Europe, motorists involved in fatal accidents do not, in the UK, even in the face of the prime evidence against them of a dead body, have to prove their innocence. Here in this country, the C.P.S. decides whether charges can successfully be brought against the motorist, and can decide to drop a case entirely. In this instance, the van driver’s excuse that he simply didn’t see the cyclists was accepted by the C.P.S. as an adequate accounting for the death of a highly principled and well-loved citizen in the prime of his life.

In a time when the nation as a whole is encouraged to exercise, and use forms of transport other than the car, cyclists need to feel that they have the full and equal protection of the law when on the public roads, and not a law apparently interpreted (or simply set aside) to the maximum advantage of the driver, no matter how culpably careless. The C.P.S. was in dereliction of its duty last year. We fervently hope that it will adopt a different perspective. Allowing drivers to kill with complete impunity just will not do, and does not meet the nation’s needs and priorities.

We append a quotation from Christopher G. Thompson, ‘District Crown Prosecutor, Oxford Rural’, in a letter sent by him to one of the Reading CC committee who had written deploring this failure to prosecute (dated 16 March 2009): “the fact that no prosecution has followed in this case does not in any way mean or suggest that drivers may drive carelessly around cyclists or that cyclists will not be afforded the protection of the law where appropriate.”

In what must have been a considered letter, that phrasing about ‘affording’ cyclists “the protection of the law where appropriate” is chilling: NO, Mr Thompson, NO! The protection of the law. Full stop.

Thank you.

The committee and membership of Reading Cycling Club.

Ditto for Ale: The Retreat, The Nag’s Head and The Hopleaf for a game of bar Billiards and Hopback brews.

Train out to Pangbourne/Goring and ride back? You could hire one of these, http://www.oybike.com (they have a location near the train station) and bike back along the river. The Catherine wheel in Goring is nice, as well as The Swan and The Ferryboat in Pangbourne. (I don;t know what the bikes are like, but it seems to work?)

Alternately, walk downstream out of the town centre on the River, you’ll go through Thames Valley park and end up in Sonning, where if you follow the footpath up past the church, just after the lock, will lead to The Bull at Sonning. It’s not cheap, but another fine location for eyeing the chi-chi ladies…

Don’t know when you’ll be around, but i might have a spare bike, if you happent to have bought SPD shoes !? my email is in profile.

Cheers folks! I like the sound of the purple turtle! 🙂

Sounds like that theres enough pubs to go at……….kinda looking forward to it now!