I'm a big fan of The Old Reader. The UI is quite similar to Google Reader (as I remember it), and because it's only focussed on feeds it's not cluttered with other functionality. There's even a working Windows Phone app (TORUC) for those of us still avoiding Apple or Google.

I've taken out a subscription in the hope that it will last longer than Google Reader or Bloglines (anybody remember that?).

YES! Been using Bloglines as long as possible. It took Google Reader quite a while to outperform Bloglines back then.

Last I checked alternatives, I liked g2reader.com slightly better than theoldreader.com, though I use it just very occasionally.