Wacky, Waving, Inflatable, Arm-Flailing, Tube Man in Luton

An airdancer from the archives.

We saw this Wacky, Waving, Inflatable, Arm-Flailing, Tube-man at a funfair in Luton's Wardown Park back in August 2010.

Halloween in the USA - Part V

A look at some brilliant Halloween decorations from the USA.

Emily was recently in the US and while there spotted some excellent inflatable Halloween decorations.

Inflatable Halloween decorations at Walmart in New Jersey

There are now only 7 days to Halloween!

Unfortunately there wasn't enough room in her luggage to bring any back to decorate our house with.

Check out my blog post about Halloween-themed minigolf courses and events to see what's happening.

Our friends Robin and Tom at A Couple of Putts have also created the hashtag #Puttober to share all things Halloweeney at miniature golf courses.

Southwold Putting Championship 2019

The Southwold Putting Championship takes place this Sunday.

A lovely spot for some miniature golf

Good luck to all of the players in the Annual Southwold Putting Championship taking place in the Suffolk seaside town on Sunday 27th October.

The Southwold Putting course was the 478th played and 811th visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour in May last year.

I managed to score aces on the 7th and 11th holes. It's always nice to score holes-in-one on grass Putting courses

It's a lovely setting and a really good grass putting layout.

On our visit I shot a 41, the the low round of the week.

The course was a good test of putting skill

The course is well worth a visit. If you gain the lowest score of the week or season you earn yourself a spot in the annual tournament. You can also buy into the two-round competition with a £5 charity donation at the course.

Visit the Southwold Putting & Cafe on the Green on Facebook for more information.

Halloween in the City 2019

A look at some of the monsters that have invaded Manchester city centre.

The first monster I saw was atop the old Mayfield Station

Halloween in the City has kicked off and the city centre has been invaded by ten monsters.

A monster on top of Next at the Manchester Arndale

I was in Manchester yesterday afternoon and managed to spot five of the beasts.

Two of the monsters at Selfridges in Exchange Square

Emily and I are looking forward to finding them all this weekend.

The Depot at Mayfield monster

Halloween in the City is a superb idea to get people out and about exploring Manchester.

There's a dragon at The Printworks

Visit the Halloween in the City website for more information and to download the Monster Invasion: Return of the Monsters map.

Pretty much every tree in the city centre is full of pumpkins!

My lucky day

I popped out to buy some magic beans earlier and spotted this new place to buy lottery tickets.

Sketchy and Blair Witchy!

Luckily the Wallet Inspector stopped me before I ventured in.

World Tripe Day

Happy World Tripe Day.

Today is World Tripe Day. Will you be having any?

World Tripe Day is an opportunity for tripe lovers to celebrate their love of tripe.

Please ask for tripe

Ever since I first spotted tripe on a butcher's stall at Wigan Market in 2012 I've been following the Tripe Marketing Board with interest. Although not enough interest to have actually eaten tripe. I'm fairly certain that cow's stomach is something of an acquired taste. I do believe it's gluten free though.

Lots of tripe in Leeds

The Tripe Marketing Board is dedicated to educating the public about eating tripe as part of a healthy, balanced diet and was formed as an industry-wide response to the continuing post-war decline in tripe sales in the UK. This was due to the ending of rationing, increasing affluence and a widespread perception that it is not fit for human consumption.

Stockport tripe

The Tripe Marketing Board told me that up until the 1960s you could find hundreds of tripe shops throughout Lancashire, with many of the shops run by United Cattle Products (UCP) and offering nose-to-tail food at the attached cafes and restaurants. 

The UK's last remaining tripe shop can be found in Stalybridge, Greater Manchester.

The 'branded' name of this product is 'Chitterlings'. It certainly sounds better than the homogeneous product name!

Visit the Tripe Marketing Board website for more information about tripe. You can also use Tripe Adviser to locate sellers of the delicacy.

Related blog posts:

- There's truth in advertising and then there's this!

Putting Green at the Thorpeness Golf Club and Hotel

A look at the Putting Green at the Thorpeness Golf Club and Hotel in Suffolk.

We played the excellent Jiggers Miniature Golf course at Thorpeness Golf Club & Hotel in Suffolk back in May 2018.

The venue is also home to a big golf course and a nice little Putting Green.

A lost Crazy Golf course in Falmouth

During the summer of 2015 we had a two week road trip around the South West of England.

During that time we found and played a number of courses.

Sadly some of the places we visited were home to lost courses.

One of the more recognisable locations was at Gyllyngvase Beach in Falmouth, Cornwall. The course appeared on a number of postcards over the years.

While the course is now part of a garden it is still clear that it was once a Crazy Golf layout.

89 years since the first National Tom Thumb Golf Championship took place

Celebrating 89 years since the first National Tom Thumb Championship was contested in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Garnet Carter created the first artificial miniature golf course in the USA in 1926. The first of the 'Tom Thumb Golf' brand of miniature golf course was an 18-hole layout located near Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

By 1930 there were some 25,000 miniature golf courses in the USA, 3,000 of which were the now patented Tom Thumb course franchises.

The course and fantasy theming caught the imagination of visitors and on the 23rd October 1930 the final of the first-ever National Tom Thumb Championship took place.

Qualifying events had taken place in all of the then 48 states of the USA, with 200 players representing 30 states in the grand final. The event had a total prize fund of $10,000, with the champion winning $2,000!

Today hundreds of miniature golf competitions take place around the world and new courses are opening up all the time.

We haven't played a Tom Thumb Golf course on our travels, but we do have some nice old postcards of Tom Thumb courses in our collection. This one is of a course at Westende Bains in Belgium

Check out the Crazy Golf Museum website for more details of minigolf history.

Bunkers! Crazy Golf & Drinks opening in Swansea

There's a new indoor Crazy Golf course and bar opening in Swansea, Wales.

Swansea will soon be home to a new minigolf course as Bunkers! Crazy Golf opens in December.

Visit the Bunkers! website for more information.

Bunkers! Crazy Golf is from Adventure Leisure Ltd, part of Burhill Group Limited and the team behind Mr Mulligans Adventure Golf.

It'll be interesting to see the new Bunkers! Crazy Golf course when it opens.

We enjoyed our last visit to Swansea way back in 2009 and always love visiting Wales.

Swingers West End Crazy Golf in London

Playing at Swingers West End Crazy Golf in London.

We played the superb Big Wheel course at Swingers West End Crazy Golf in London on Saturday morning.

Playing the Big Wheel on hole 9

The indoor Crazy Golf layouts at Swingers have a seaside theme and are set inside a very nice environment to spend a few hours.

Emily about to ace hole 4

We both scored 22 over 9-holes, but as it was my birthday I won.

Top of the podium

There were some quite tricky holes, although with a bit of practice most could be aceable. Emily shot holes-in-one on holes 4 and 9.

Emily with a tricky second putt on hole 8

We've always found Swingers Crazy Golf courses to be extremely well done. From first entering the venue until the point you leave it's a pleasure to be there. The obstacles and greens are well designed and are very pleasing to look at. The putters and balls are high quality and the scorecards are incredibly well done.

When you see the full fold out scorecard it's a thing of beauty

There's always a BIG loop-di-loop at Swingers Crazy Golf

During our round we enjoyed some drinks on the course. Each hole has a little table to hold your drinks which is a very nice touch.

Hole 1

Hole 2

Hole 3

Hole 4

Hole 6

Hole 7

Hole 8

Hole 9

The green of hole 9

After our round Emily ordered some delicious food from Breddos Tacos and had a very nice Old Fashioned with it.

There's a private bar area between the two courses

Having a nice sit down

We played the first Swingers pop-up Crazy Golf course in Shoreditch back in September 2014. The brand has grown since then, with Swingers in The City opening next to the Gherkin in 2016, a course I played in 2017.

We're looking forward to playing at Swingers Crazy Golf again in the future.

The Helter Skelter course at Swingers

Hole 2 and 3 on the Helter Skelter course

Hole 9 - the Helter Skelter

Some of the merch available at Swingers

For more information visit the Swingers Crazy Golf website.

Halloween in the USA - Part IV

A look at some brilliant Halloween decorations from the USA.

Emily was recently in the US and while there spotted some superb Halloween decorations.

A headless horseman at Home Depot

Unfortunately there wasn't enough room in her luggage to bring any back for us to decorate our house with.

There are now only 9 days to Halloween!

Our friends at A Couple of Putts have created the hashtag #Puttober to share all things Halloweeney at miniature golf courses.

Check out my blog post about Halloween-themed minigolf courses and events to see what's happening.

St Mark's Community Association Crazy Golf course in Sunderland

A look at the Crazy Golf course at St Mark's Community Association in Sunderland.

While in the North East during a road-trip to Scotland in April 2012 we swung by St Mark's Community Association in Sunderland as we'd heard about the then new Crazy Golf course there.

Unfortunately we couldn't find anyone to hire clubs and balls from so were unable to play the very nice looking 7-hole course.

During that trip north we visited a total of 49 courses, playing 13 of them.

The Crazy Golf course at St Mark's Community Association in Sunderland was the 495th course visited on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. We've now been to 933 courses since September 2006.

Playing Puttshack super tech mini golf at White City

A visit to Puttshack super tech mini golf at White City in London.

We celebrated my birthday with a game of super tech mini golf at Puttshack while down in London. It was the first time we've played a course using technology-enabled balls.

A Puttshack ball

Waiting for take-off!

We played a round on the Emerald course - one of four 9-hole layouts at Puttshack.

I'm always ready for minigolf

Once you place your ball on the tee you have to wait until the lights go green before teeing-off. You've then got one minute to play the ball.

Two apiece on hole one, but Emily was slightly quicker on her putting

Time is against you on each subsequent putt and the quicker you play, the more points you'll pick up. However, accuracy is required and so you still need to get the ball in the hole in the least shots possible.

There are also 'Super Tube' holes on the course which give you a nice route to the cup and are the best chance for a hole-in-one. Emily managed to hit two aces during our game.

Emily about to shoot an ace

Hole 8 was interesting as there were three routes to the cup - the tricky Super Tube, a tunnel to the left and a tunnel to the right. Which tunnel you putted through depended on whether you knew the answer to a question that appeared on the screen when you placed the ball on the tee. Luckily I got my question right and picked up some extra points, while Emily was incorrect and dropped ten points.

The question hole

Spin the wheel...

...to win a prize or points...

...or not as was the case in our game

Minigolf roulette

Sgt Putters Club Band

Emily hit an ace on hole 7

Emily picked up the win in our match-up with a score of 390 points to my 376.

I lost

Unfortunately there aren't any scorecards to take away with you after playing at Puttshack, nor are your scores emailed to you. It's a real shame as we didn't take note of the number of strokes on each hole, or the points we picked up along the way. According to the screens Emily took 17 shots while I played 19 strokes.

After our game we had some drinks and Emily enjoyed some food at the venue. It was nice to see branded wet-wipes at the course, one of which is now in the Crazy Golf Museum's vaults.

I first visited Puttshack while in London last December. The Christmas party season was in full swing and the courses were heaving!

One of the three courses was asleep when we arrived, but was busy by the time we left

The Sapphire course

A view of the Sapphire course

A pool-themed hole on the Sapphire course

Puttshack White City was the brand's first location and opened at Westfield London in 2018. The second Puttshack opened at intu Lakeside in August this year. The new Puttshack at Bank is due to open on Saturday 23rd November. There are also plans for a new Puttshack to open in Watford next year. For more information visit the Puttshack website.