Short of completing my Time Machine and heading back to 1999 I thought it was nigh on impossible to find an old Happy Shopper shop sign. I guess yesterday was my lucky day.
What a sign
I just happened to be wearing the right colour jacket for the photo too!
I remember seeing the Happy Shopper shops and branded products a lot when I was a kid.
The Happy Shopper branding was changed in the year 2000 and I think it lost a lot of its charm and individuality. Many of the former Happy Shopper stores were rebranded as Premier shops.
Happy Shopper does still exist, as both convenience stores and own brand food & drink products.
Do you remember Happy Shopper? Did you have a favourite Happy Shopper product?
Toys R Us ceased trading in the UK in April 2018. I worked there back in the year 2000.
It's always interesting to see signs from lost brands
This store is in Preston, Lancashire.
Toys R Us at the Deepdale shopping centre in Preston
Apart from one ghost sign on the side of the building where the raised letters have been removed it looks like it could've still been open.
Ghost signs
A busy car park
A colourful store front
Welcome to Toys R Us
This store is now closed
The entrance
A nice sign on the right of the building
At the exit
The exit doors
A piece of ephemera
Remnants
A branded electricity substation
There have been plans for the old Toys R Us at the Deepdale shopping centre to be converted into a gym or a Sports Direct. But at the moment it's still there as something of a time capsule.
Retail parks, malls and shopping centres have become a popular location for minigolf courses and other activities as part of retailtainment offerings. This shoppertainment offers customers something extra to shopping and dining, as well as increasing footfall and dwell time at a venue.
A look at the social distancing measures in place on the Crazy Golf course at The Flower Bowl Entertainment Centre in Preston.
The 18-hole Secret Garden Crazy Golf course is one of the new minigolf courses we had planned to play before the coronavirus pandemic hit. The course is part of The Flower Bowl Entertainment Centre in Preston, Lancashire.
We've heard great things from everyone who has had a chance to play there so far and the photos we've seen of the course have been amazing.
The team at The Flower Bowl Entertainment Centre have kindly sent over photos of The Secret Garden Crazy Golf course and details of the measures they've put in place to make it as safe as possible for players and to be COVID-19 Secure in 2020.
In addition to the Crazy Golf course the centre is home to a wide-range of activities that will be reopening in the coming weeks and months.
The impact of coronavirus
It'll be interesting to see the changes to how minigolf is played as lockdown restrictions ease and it becomes safer to get out and about a bit more.
I've been writing about social distancing and the impact of coronavirus on minigolf and competitive socialising venues. You can see more of my posts at 'The Coronavirus (Ham & Egger) Files'.
We're looking forward to restarting our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. It's currently paused at 948 course visits. We were on quite a roll this year as we visited 20 courses in the first 20 days of 2020.
We were also closing in on visiting the final 40 courses that were on our original list of 600 when our travels began in 2006.
The Dull Men's Club is where dull men — and women who appreciate dull men — share experiences of enjoying everyday, mundane things, far from glitz and glam — "Celebrating the Ordinary".
The keynote speaker at the event was Dr Sandi Mann, aka ‘Dr Boredom’, author of The Science of Boredom: The Upside of Downtime, who spoke to the attendees about the benefits of boredom and her research on the Thirty Habits of Boring People.
My speech at the summit centred on the world of miniature golf.
Talking crazy golf at the Dull Men's Club Summit in 2018
Some highlights of my presentation covered my travels on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour and how I, along with Emily, had - up to that point - visited 815 miniature golf courses since 2006.
Some of the intricacies of the sport were also discussed, with the show & tell element on minigolf balls being a particular highlight.
Check out the latest posts and interviews from the Dull Men's Club.
The keynote speaker at the event was Dr Sandi Mann, aka ‘Dr Boredom’, author of The Science of Boredom: The Upside of Downtime, who spoke to the attendees about the benefits of boredom and her research on the Thirty Habits of Boring People.
The Dull Men's Club is where dull men — and women who appreciate dull men — share experiences of enjoying everyday, mundane things, far from glitz and glam — "Celebrating the Ordinary".
Some highlights of my presentation covered my travels on the Crazy World of Minigolf Tour and how I, along with Emily, had - up to that point - visited 815 miniature golf courses since 2006.
The desk space in the lecture theatre was a lovely shade of grey
Some of the intricacies of the sport were also discussed, with the show & tell element on minigolf balls being a particular highlight.
One of the other guests we met at the event was Martin, head of the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society. Interestingly (for some) Telegraph Pole Appreciation Day and Miniature Golf Day both fall on the 21st September each year. Martin also wrote a nice blog post following the event.
A telegraph pole I spotted on our visit to the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway heritage steam railway in the Lake District last year
