page_title: Culture of Reading, Berkshire
section_title: Other
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Reading, Berkshire / Other
caption_attribution_description: Reading Beer Festival
context_page_description: Reading is a town in the English county of Berkshire.
context_section_description: When Ricky Gervais (born in Reading) used to perform a stand-up comedy segment on the British TV show The 11 O'Clock Show, he would often (comically) describe the residents of the Reading suburb Whitley as the lowest members of society. This turned Whitley into a household name for the duration of the series. His film Cemetery Junction although filmed elsewhere in the UK, is based in 1970s Reading and is named after a busy junction in East Reading.
  The roadside chain of restaurants Little Chef began in the town back in 1958. Its first branch was a small venue that could house eleven patrons.
  A Reading edition of Monopoly is available (see Localized versions of the Monopoly game). Reading is not officially a city, having missed out during the millennium celebrations when the Queen instead granted Brighton and Hove city status in 2000.
  A study conducted by the Reading Borough Council in 2010 revealed that school children in Reading schools speak 150 different languages.
  The Reading Beer Festival was first held in 1994, and has now grown to one of the largest beer festivals in the UK. It is held at King's Meadow for the four days immediately preceding the May Day Bank Holiday every year.
  In 1974, the BBC filmed The Family in Reading. The show, considered to one of the first reality television shows, followed the lives of the Wilkins family.
  Reading is the location of the musical comedy television show Beautiful People, which is a fictional adaptation of the writings of Simon Doonan, who grew up in the town.
  In a 2007 poll by Readers Digest, Reading was named the worst place in Britain to live for families. However the methodology of the survey was questioned by some of the locals, with only three towns of population greater than 40,000 included amongst the "winners".
  The demonym for a person from Reading can be any of Readingensian, synonymous with the local league Rugby team Redingensians based in Sonning, Readinger or Readingonian.
  The Canadian news and public affairs radio show As It Happens, on CBC Radio One, frequently refers to the town in stories and interviews from the UK, noting the location of the piece by its distance from Reading. The reference is usually in both standard lengths (miles and/or kilometres) and some strange measurement linked to the story, such as the number of garden gnomes, laid end-to-end. This now-traditional joking practice began in the 1970s when a British-born producer noted on a script that a small village mentioned in a story was located 'nine miles from Reading'. It was intended to clarify the location for staff and listeners, but most were unfamiliar with the town, and it quickly became a running joke on the show to identify any story location in the UK, no matter how well-known or how far from Reading, by its distance from the town. The practice has been given credit for boosting Reading's profile in North America and also for drawing Canadian tourists who are fans of the program to visit Reading while in England.
  Reading Carnival is an annual event that has been held on the May bank Holiday Monday for several years. The carnival celebrates the large West Indian community that has resided in Reading since the 1950s and its integration into the town.
caption: Reading Beer Festival 2009 in King's Meadow
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