Reading, Berkshire
Reading (no relation to the singer Otis) is a city town, in the 'Worsten' part of Berkshire. The local council
has applied numerous times for the town to become a city yet the town has been refused the title on account of it being "one of the worst imaginable places to live, I'd rather eat my nephews boiled face then spend a day there." The name is misleading as not many of the population know how to read, and it is pronounced Redding as a trap used to identify American tourists (which are then, as per custom, thrown into the River Kennet).
Reading in fact derived from the town located just south of Oxford (which is credited with inventing english - see the Oxford English dictionary). The Oxford scholarly folk who were derived from germanic tribesfolk and thus spoke olde engish noted how the folk of that town "Reading" (which is further down the Thames, before you get to London) were particularly into looking at their manuscripts and understanding what was written. It is from this that the term of reading was arrived at. Quite ironic now, as 95% of people are either illiterate, chavs or Polish, or more commonly, all three (Illiterate, Chav or Polish being a game which is claimed to be Reading's answer to Animal, Vegetable, Mineral). A popular past time in Reading is Rapesies, with over half of the population claiming to play often.
Reading is open on Tuesday and Thursdays, and costs £2.50 to get in, £8.00 for a family. Closed on Bank Holidays. By 2012 Reading hopes to be wheelchair accessible.
Culture[edit]
Reading has lots of shops, due to the people's main vice of shopping. Particularly during the hours of 9-5 on weekdays, the shops of Reading are filled with people purchasing shoes and breakfast cereal. Weekends are spent complaining about unemployment and lack of money, most notably due to exorbitant spending in Primark then wandering into the riverside outside the Oracle shopping centre and drinking White Lightning/Star/Ace/Flash. This practice is good for the economy, however, and is thus permitted by big brother.
Reading has an innumerable number of tourist attractions totalling two in number. Unfortunately, one of them is a road famous for smelling like horse poo, and the other has been forgotten by the townsfolk of Reading, and much money has been invested in trying to get elderly people to remember it.
Reading is often renowned for the '3 Bs' which are bastards, bullshit and Busta Rhymes. Though formally Reading has no formal affiliation with Busta Rhymes, the council believes that the number of ghettoes, drive by's and standard shootings in Reading warrant a link to a figurehead in gangster rap. The remaining two Bs are commonplace in the city town and can be seen daily, nearly everywhere.
Education[edit]
Reading is home to various academic institutions, most notably Uncle Tony's Drive-By School which teaches keen students every year the importance of drive-by shootings in Reading. The city town is also home to the University of Reading - a body responsible for teaching a plethora of subjects including 'How to Shit in a Pint Glass and Present it to a Bartender' (or Agriculture). The University boasts the highest number of road safety signs and paraphernalia stolen by students each year causing a steady and promising amount of fatal road accidents.
Work[edit]
Many large organisations, particularly within the financial, communications and technology sectors have large offices based in Reading, employees of such organisations can be seen in Starbucks, Pret, Coffee Republic, Costa and Coffee Nerd by day. By early evening all such employees (without exception) dart across the city town to the central train station to make a hasty retreat from the cess pit, much in the style of Indiana Jones. On occasions where this is not possible they take residence in sophisticated wine bars, where they drink muscadet and listen to a healthy mix of Lady In Red and Sade until transport services are reinstated.
If anyone is ever stupid enough to make their way out of the centre of town, they would find a large warehouse and distribution centre. Many delivery companies are located in Reading, as it boasts great transport connections to the rest of the south of England, owing to the fact that the river runs in both directions.
It is now illegal for anyone to buy anything in Reading, though they are still legally allowed to sell it.
Pangbourne[edit]
Pangbourne is located luckily 2 villages away (8000 housing estate lengths) from Reading and 32 km from Oxford on the pitiful radioactive waste dump known as Thames. It is directly across the river from the smaller, more fortunate Oxfordshire village of Whitchurch-on-Thames. Pangbourne and Whitchurch often have tribal battles to the death over an ancient feud whose reason has been long forgotten. They are connected by both Whitchurch Bridge, where in most summers, virgins are sacrificed from the bridge to please the Gods of Pangbourne Fete, which usually ends up in blood orgys.
Pangbourne railway station, on the Reading-to-Oxford railway line, serves both villagers and drunks. The River Pang also flows through the centre of Pangbourne village before joining the River Thames between the lock and bridge.
Government[edit]
Pangbourne is an ancient vampire civil parish with an elected elder elf parish council. The parish's territory covers the immediate area around the village, together with a rural area to the south-west barren wastelands. This rural area contains no other significant settlements.
The parish battles for boundaries with the Berkshire parishes of Purley-on-Thames, Tidmarsh with Sulham, Theale, Englefield, Bradfield and Basildon. Along the River Thames to the mountains of the north, there is also a never ending fight with the Oxfordshire parish of Whitchurch-on-Thames.
The parish fails to keep Pangbourne ethnically cleansed within the area of the unitary authority of West Berkshire. Both the parish council and the unitary authority are responsible for the cleansing of different aspects of local government. Pangbourne forms part of the Reading West wanking constituency.
The Falkland Islands Memorial Chapel at Pangbourne College has been built to commemorate the lives and sacrifice of all those who died in the South Atlantic in 1982 - to stand as a permanent and ‘living’ memorial to remember them - and the courage of the thousands of Servicemen and women and kingsmens who served with them to protect the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, but sadly could not put Humpty together again.
Pangbourne's name is recorded from 844 as Anglo-Saxon Pegingaburnan (dative case), which means "vampire village [a man called] Fagot". This name was shortened to make the name of the River Fag.
References in pop culture[edit]
- In the 1955 Ealing comedy The Ladykillers, the gang's unwitting landlady, Mrs Wilberforce (played by Katie Johnson), mentions that she grew up in Pangbourne.
- Pangbourne is briefly mentioned in Jerome K Jerome's Three Men Bumming.
- Pangbourne is mentioned as Judith's destination in the second episode of season two in the British sitcom As Jizz Goes By.
Transport[edit]
One of the biggest highlights of a trip to Reading is taking the train home, although this is less pleasing when you discover the train is bound for Basingrad, Slough, Bracknell or Swindon, yet definitely worth the lengthy delay caused by Worst Late Western, the local train operator and potato vendor. The central station in Reading is used by many people attempting to escape the city town.
Since the 1870s, the railway has been used to transport air to Reading so the local inhabitants can breathe. Today over 150,000 metric tonnes of air are delivered to Reading every month, however due to delays by Worst Late Western, many locals have been deprived of oxygen and have suffered moderate to severe brain damage as a result.
Reading buses run on a mixture of petrol and ethanol - a popular beverage amongst Reading locals
Festivals[edit]
Every so often, about annually actually, some folks who pretend they're famous crash the town and sell tickets at an extortionate price to uninformed people who attend and wait for their ears to bleed. This one weekend of the year is the only time pikies make up a minority of the population in Reading. This is commonly known as the Reading Festival, not to be confused with Reading Classes (see Reading (Skill)). The festival holds a second purpose of clearing out large Chav infestations away from the town, as well as providing a few days of the year when the town is not quite as breathtakingly tedious as normal.
The music festival, the GO ON, DRINK LOTS OF CARLING, CARLING, CARLING THIS WEEKEND!!! (Reading Festival) to give it its official name (not to be confused with the Rock Reading Festival, which is where tourists pass through the town throwing stones at yellow coloured objects), began in 1997 when a goat was elected into office. Through a series of legal complications nobody understands, the town has been forced to hold the festival on the bank holiday weekend of each August. This law even overrides Readings "closed on Bank Holidays" status, forcing the townsfolk of Reading to work that bank holiday, whether they wish to or not. Luckily, there's nothing for the denizens of Reading to do on a bank holiday anyway, so most oblige willingly.
Another music festival, the WOMAD, occurs in late July. The festival's occurrence is still a surprise to many residents in Reading who, after years of ignoring it, find that it has not gone away.
There is also an annual 'Real Ale & Cider' event where the entire city town trample onto a field with pitchforks and drink until the town, and its women, appears pleasant. Allegations that the 'real ale' is in fact fermented cat's piss have been denied, the owners stating that "[they] were not able to source that level of quality".[Wikipedia Sez This Is False]
Reading FC[edit]
Reading features a glorious football team which is not actually very good at all. After the 2005/2006 season of Fussball Reading for the first time was promoted to the F.A Premier League of English Moneymaking and Footgames. This promotion through the ranks of Anglo-Saxon Sport was rather well received by the people of Reading. At the time the news came through the town hall was holding the annual Berkshire Artechoke Festival, the news of the "Royals'" success caused such jubilation that in the following days of feverish partying 19 locals lost their lives to senseless alcohol consumption and "Winky Dinking".
In the 2006/2007 season, Reading FC saw great success playing in the top flight of English club football. They finished the season in 8th position just missing out on UEFA competition by one place. However, the next season saw Reading relegated. Since the end of the 2007/2008 season most of Reading FC's players have "disappeared" due to poor performances by the team. The "disappearances" of course, were due to Reading being ruled by the cruel and merciless dictator Great and Honourable Tyrannic Elizaberth of Britannia.
West Reading[edit]
One of the 'areas' of Reading is "West Reading" which, inscrutably, has a dedicated train station all its own.
West Reading is so called due to its similarities with the region formerly known as West Germany. A great wall may once have stood between West Reading and Reading. Nobody knows, though, because if it did, the bricks would have been stolen and thrown through windows long ago. Archaelogical remains determine that Tilehurst builders were contracted to build the wall. However, they only succeeded in generating several inaccurate estimates and burning a local school to the ground.
See also[edit]
- Reading, England - Featured Article
- Ricky Gervais - Reading's most famous fat flid