I've been blogging for 17 years today.
I'm often asked how is it that a blog about minigolf has the name the 'Ham and Egger Files'? The answer is that it didn't initially start out life as a minigolf blog.
The first post
I published my first post about how I planned to participate in as many obscure and minority sports as I could and see what would happen with the (limited amount of) sporting ability I had!
What is a Ham & Egger?
The term 'ham and egger' has connotations ranging from that of 'ordinary person' to that of 'loser'. The origin of the term comes from prize fighters whose modest skills wouldn’t let them win large purses. Therefore, the fighter or their manager - who received a percentage of any purses won - were never able to afford to eat better than ham and eggs.
Lots of blogs
Since that first post 17 years ago I have published more than 5,400 posts and received more than 3 million pageviews!
Admittedly, a large number of the blog posts have been about minigolf.
The Crazy World of Minigolf Tour
Our interest in minigolf and what would soon become our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour had actually begun on the 30th September 2006, but I didn't publish a post about the sport until the 29th January 2007 when I announced that I had joined the British Minigolf Association - a competition circuit I made my actual debut on in Southend-on-Sea on the 28th April 2007.
Since then we've visited 1,043 miniature golf courses. 996 of those have been in the British Isles, while 47 have been in overseas countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Spain (& Lanzarote, Canary Islands), Sweden and the USA.
When we began our travels there were around 600 courses in the UK. There are now more than 1,000, with new courses opening all the time.
Other sports & games are available
If you're wondering what happened to the quest to play lots of different sports, that has continued and I've participated in some very interesting events over the years!
.JPG "Me and the plaque that commemorates Reg 'Stan Butler' Varney's use of the world's first cash machine in Enfield!")
.JPG "At the headquarters of the Monster Raving Loony Party in Llanyrtd Wells, Wales with my World Alternative Games Egg Throwing Championship winning team-mate Jas Kukielka")
.JPG "One of the many plaques on the Barnard Castle Blue Plaque Trail")
.jpg "Cecil Court Traders' Association in London has a number of historic plaques")
.jpg "Cecil Court Traders' Association in London has a number of historic plaques")
.jpg "Cecil Court Traders' Association in London has a number of historic plaques")
.jpg "Chatham House didn't keep this huge blue plaque quiet")
.jpg "The Old Bank House in Hastings, East Sussex")
.jpg "The Communications Building in London's Leicester Square has two brown plaques for Sir Joshua Reynolds")
.jpg "A fuller view of the lower brown plaque for Sir Joshua Reynolds")
.jpg "The Piece of Cheese Cottage in Hastings, East Sussex")
.jpg "One of The Ipswich Society's new blue plaques")
.jpg "A rectangular blue plaque in Luton, Bedfordshire")
.JPG "The new Minigolf course in Barnard Castle, County Durham has a plaque in memory of the man responsible for bringing Minigolf to the town")
.JPG "A close-up of the dedication plaque to Alan Wilkinson on the Barnard Castle Minigolf course")
.jpg "The train station in Needham Market, Suffolk has a variety of blue plaques on the station house building")
.jpg "Blue plaque at the Tom Cribb pub on Panton Street in London")
.jpg "Blue board/plaque at the Tom Cribb pub in London")
.jpg "Gold plaque at the Tom Cribb pub in London")
.JPG "Heritage in Sutton has put up quite a few very interesting red plaques around Carshalton")
.JPG "One of the redder red plaques in Carshalton")
.jpg "A small and high up plaque in Hastings' Old Town")
.jpg "The house where T.E. Lawrence lived in Westminster, London")
.jpg "The City of Westminster has a lot of green plaques dotted around the borough")
.jpg "There's an intriguing plaque at Pickering Place in London")
.jpg "A close-up of the Texas Legation gold plaque in London")
.jpg "One of Worthing's many plaques")
.jpg "A nice plaque on a nice building in Worthing, West Sussex")
.jpg "Hastings has a Winkle Island")
.jpg "The Pedestrian Shopping Street in Hastings was re-opened by Carry on... star Bernard Bresslaw in 1987!")
.JPG "The blue plaque at the train station in Walton on the Naze in Essex")
.JPG "A close-up of the Walton Station Hotel blue plaque")