Virgin Megastore Reading is no more

So Virgin finally closed their “Megastore” in Reading. I think I can recall casually wondering when that would happen. They’re “old”, in the wrong place (the older shopping mall) and there are too many alternatives. More importantly, they’re around the corner from FOPP and I like to think that it was they who put Virgin out of business. This is a good thing because FOPP seem to care a little more than the big corporates (read: they’ll let you return music – though I’ve never actually had cause to do this) and it’s good for consumers to have that kind of thing.

I did something a little dirty. I bought the Pussycat Dolls album earlier. I know. But they don’t take things too seriously and they’re quite fit, so there’s some kind of motivation. The music isn’t as bad as it could be either. I did buy Coldplay X&Y as some kind of compensation for this minor musical taste indiscretion.

On a related note, there’s a second Starbucks at the Oracle shopping mall now. I wondered who it would be. That takes the number of Starbucks outlets in Reading to 3 or 4 that I know of now. It’s not quite like the US, but bear in mind that a few years ago there were none at all here. I bought one coffee in the older Oracle store and a tea, but I did also go to Pret for some variability. I love their veggie soup (though Hannah rightfully points out that it’s probably not suitable for vegans – it’s got to be fun if you’re vegan and want to eat somewhere even like Pret).

This is a random post. The point being that I hadn’t been into Reading for months (how cool is that? I got over the need to pointlessly go into town for no reason!) and it had changed a little in a semi-progressive kind of way. Though I couldn’t see a newspaper store I wanted to check out (I hope it’s not closed down). My final bit of consumer advice for the day is that Woolworths are repeating their Espresso machine offer – I have two of these stainless steel machines because they’re great and only £40 if you buy one now. I dislike Woolworths in general these days (they seem to want to sell themselves to chavs) and had to leave quickly, but it’d be worth going in there to buy one of these nonetheless.

Jon.

3 Responses to “Virgin Megastore Reading is no more”

  1. beanie says:

    hi
    i herd that virgin isnt closed for good i was told it is re opening in the broadstreet mall and it will take 3/4 of it up but im not sure.

  2. dk says:

    hey, a blog from someone near Reading . . always a first.
    fair enough, virgin is not closing for good, just for ‘refurbishment’. I hope it opens soon, because i want to buy the oceans 11 soundtrack, and thats the only place i know where to get it.

  3. Bob says:

    yes you are right the virgin megastore is not closing it is going to re-open. but i don’t care about its compertition and where it is i just want it to hury up and open because i got got virgin vouchers i wanna spend! why dosn’t virgin have a date?

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