A Mask Vending Machine

We saw our first Mask Vending Machine at the Spinning Gate shopping centre in Leigh, Greater Manchester on Saturday.

A #maskbox PPE vending machine

What a time we're living through!

I've been documenting the Covid-19 and social distancing signs I've seen during the pandemic here on my blog as well as on my Instagram account.

Related blog posts:

- Vending

- Leigh

- Shopping

An old crazy golf postcard from Blackpool

This old minigolf postcard by Photo Precision Limited shows the South Shore Baths and Promenade in Blackpool.

I'd say the prominent feature on the card is the crazy golf course in the foreground

It was posted on the 17th September 1980. A month before I was born.

Last year I had my family's cinefilm converted and was amazed to see my parents playing crazy golf in Blackpool in August 1980. That round was on the course at Princess Parade on the North Shore.

The South Shore Crazy Golf course was located right outside the Pleasure Beach. It was removed in 2008 and replaced by an Adventure Golf layout. I won the Pleasure Beach Open tournament on that course in 2009.

COVID-19 Buster in Leigh

We spotted this interesting shop while in Leigh, Greater Manchester on Saturday.

It's the best shop name I've seen during the pandemic.

COVID-19 Buster sells PPE to businesses and individuals.

No sitting

A look at a shopping centre bench in the time of social distancing.

A bench in the Spinning Gate shopping centre in Leigh

We've seen a few other benches with social distancing signs and rules about sitting down during the pandemic, including a pair of socially distanced benches in Spinningfields, Manchester and these two in Colne, Lancashire.

I've been documenting the Covid-19 and social distancing signs I've seen during the pandemic here on the blog as well as on my Instagram account.

JJB Sports in Leigh

A look at an old JJB Sports shop in Leigh.

The shopfront of the old JJB Sports shop on Bradshawgate in Leigh, Greater Manchester is still visible.

The company went into administration in 2012 with stores closing in October and was dissolved in November that year.

The retail space occupies the ground floor of the Leigh Friendly Co-operative Society building that was designed in 1897 and opened in 1899.

The JJB brand is now owned by Sports Direct.

This shopfront on the town's main shopping street retains the pre-2010 branding on the signage.

Old shops and lost brands

One of my areas of interest is in old retail brands - I'm a marketer by profession and two of my first jobs in the 1990's and the year 2000 were at Tandy and Toys R Us. It's been fascinating to find remnants of a number of lost, dead and defunct brands on the high street and at retail parks. Some of them include Blockbuster Video, Woolworths and RadioShack, as well as examples of previous brand iterations such as Happy Shopper.

2020 is Out of Order

If 2020 was a sanitising station in a shop.

Boom: Battle Bar opening in Liverpool

A new Boom: Battle Bar with minigolf and more is planned to open in Liverpool next year.

Boom: Battle Bar Liverpool will be the third venue from the brand.

As well as a minigolf course - known as 'Crazier Golf' - the Liverpool venue will be home to axe throwing, shuffleboard and a number of other sports and games.

Boom: Battle Bar Liverpool will be located inside a former Poundland shop in St Johns shopping centre.

My friend and minigolf rival Simon Brown played the Boom: Battle Bar 'Crazier Golf' course at the Brewery Quarter venue in Cardiff last month.

The first Boom: Battle Bar opened at the Castle Quarter shopping and entertainment centre in Norwich in July this year.

Visit the Boom: Battle Bar website for more information.

Boom: Battle Bars are a relatively new entrant to the world of competitive socialising and retailtainment. A number of shopping malls, town centres and retail parks are adding minigolf, crazy golf, adventure golf and other experiential entertainment and activity leisure offerings to their sites to attract and retain customers.

A snowy day on two lost minigolf courses

A look back at a snow day on the minigolf courses in Wardown Park, Luton.

Snow play allowed. This was back in January 2010

When we lived down in Luton, Bedfordshire our local park had two miniature golf courses. One was a 9-hole grass Mini Golf layout, the other was a 9-hole fibreglass Crazy Golf course.

That's hole 1 of the Crazy Golf course under the snow

The grass course at Wardown Park opened in 1934 and was an interesting one to play. It was too big to be considered to be a Putting Green, but not large enough to be classed as a Pitch & Putt, even though you were issued with an iron and a putter when you played.

You also received a paper ticket every time you played a round on the courses. A really nice touch and something we've rarely seen elsewhere on our travels

Sadly both courses are now long gone. Luckily we played a lot of games there in the latter half of the noughties.

The area where the two courses were was turned into a mini meadow in 2015.

Picture Postcard Annual 2021

The new Picture Postcard Annual is out now.

The 2021 Picture Postcard Annual is now available from Reflections of a Bygone Age.

The annual includes 65 features on picture postcards on a wide range of topics. I'm happy to say minigolf is well covered.

Picture Postcard Magic

It's been brilliant to contribute to the Picture Postcard Magic blog from Reflections of a Bygone Age this year. Check out my guest posts in the links below:

- Minigolf postcards from Bournemouth

- Holidays at Barry Island

- My home town of Abingdon-on-Thames

- Back in Brighton

- What have you been watching during lockdown?

Links:

- Reflections of a Bygone Age website

- Buy the Picture Postcard Annual 2021

Spot Pickle Rick

Can you see him?

Seen on a food stall at Manchester's Christmas Markets last year

The end of Blockbuster Video

The last Blockbuster Video store in the UK closed on this day in 2013.

I've spent a lot of 2020 reminiscing about 'the good old days' before the coronavirus pandemic hit the planet. One of my areas of interest is in old retail brands - I'm a marketer by profession and two of my first jobs in the 1990's and the year 2000 were at Tandy and Toys R Us. It's been fascinating to find remnants of a number of lost, dead and defunct brands on the high street and at retail parks.

Blockbuster Video Express in Colne, Lancashire this summer

One of those lost brands is Blockbuster.

Blockbuster ceased operations in the UK in December 2013. At the start of that year there were 528 Blockbuster locations in the UK. The number dwindled until October when only 264 shops remained. The remaining stores closed on the 16th December.

The first Blockbuster Video store had opened in Dallas, Texas, USA on the 19th October 1985.

Blockbuster Video in Fallowfield, Manchester

We live near an abandoned Blockbuster Video store here in Manchester. It's always an eerie, interesting and nostalgic thing to drive past the old shop at Fallowfield Retail Park.

2020 and 2013 meet - Covid-19 social distancing signage on the ground next to the remaining signage at the Blockbuster Video store in Fallowfield

The sign about the closure is still on the window there.

Blockbuster Video in the UK

At its peak in 2004 there were more than 9,000 Blockbuster stores around the world. 500+ of which were in England, Scotland and Wales. Interestingly in Northern Ireland the Xtra-Vision brand was used by the owners in-line with the Republic of Ireland.

Blockbuster Video entered the UK video rental market in 1989 following the purchase of Ritz Video.

The Last Blockbuster Video

There is still one last remaining open Blockbuster Video store in the world. It's in Bend, Oregon, USA.

We had planned to go on holiday to Portland this year but the pandemic put paid to that. We would've called in at the store if we were there.

Instead we've been visiting the sites of old Blockbuster Video shops near to us here in the North West of England. It's been incredibly interesting to see how may remnants of the brand can still be found on the high streets and retail parks of the country.

The QuikDrop box is still in place at the old store location in Prescot, Merseyside

A new documentary film about the store was released yesterday. You can find out more about it on The Last Blockbuster website.

Other video stores are available

Blockbuster certainly wasn't the first video rental shop brand, but it was at one time the market leader.

We actually found a video shop open in October. And it just so happened to be Video Shop Day. You can find B.V.C. - Bolton Video Centre in Little Lever, Bolton. It's brilliant to know that you can actually still rent VHS tapes there!

Last month we also found the remains of an old video store inside a Happy Shopper shop in Derbyshire!

Save the Video Store

Family Video - one of Blockbuster's competitors back in the day - and a brand that has existed since 1978.

There is a Save the Video Store campaign and you can follow it and get involved on social media using the hashtag #SaveTheVideoStore. 

Related blog posts:

• Video Shops
• Blockbuster

Crazy Golf on Shanklin Seafront

A look back at the Shanklin Seafront Crazy Golf course.

The first minigolf course we played on the Isle of Wight was the 18-hole layout at Shanklin Seafront back in 2008. It was a Beton-style miniature golf course more commonly found in continental Europe.

When we returned in 2016 we found it had been converted into an Arnold Palmer-style Crazy Golf course.

Since that trip the course has once again been refurbished and is now a Jurassic Adventure Golf course.

Visit the Shanklin Seafront website for more information.

We're looking forward to a return visit to the Isle of Wight on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour. We've still got to explore a lot of the island. There are also a number of new courses that have opened since our last trip there.

A gluten free Christmas

Check out Coeliac UK's Christmas campaign online and using the hashtag #GFChristmas.

Thank you to @marketing_gott who shares his experiences of eating out and eating in at #GFChristmas: https://t.co/MRLO2TvFK1 pic.twitter.com/ofFvnE0o44

— Coeliac_UK (@Coeliac_UK) December 14, 2020

Thank you to Richard Gottfried - Marketing Consultant who shares his experiences of eating out and eating in at...

Posted by Coeliac UK on Monday, 14 December 2020

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Coeliac UK (@coeliacuk)

It's always good to be able to raise awareness of Coeliac Disease and you can read more of my Tales from a Gluten Free Christmas in this Christmas blog post.

Last Christmas at The Oxford Place in Leeds

A couple of nice festive gift cards from days gone by

Did you know that Blockbuster pioneered the use of gift cards? The first plastic gift cards went on sale at Blockbuster Video in the USA back in 1994.

One of these cards is from the USA (2005), the other from Canada (2006).

Related blog posts:

- Video Shops

- Blockbuster

New Adventure Golf course at Dobbies Garden Centre in Gloucester

Dobbies Garden Centre in Gloucester will be home to a new Adventure Golf course.

A new outdoor Adventure Golf course is being built at Dobbies Garden Centre in Gloucester.

It'll be another new layout for us to play on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

We've played a few miniature golf courses at garden centres on our travels and they are a popular spot to set up a course.

Related blog posts:

- Garden Centre Minigolf

- Retailtainment

- Shopping Mall Minigolf

- Gloucestershire

- New courses

Various Fried Chicken

A look at some fried chicken shops in Rochdale.

Emily's snap of Oregon Fried Chicken in Rochdale reminded me of a few other chicken shops we've snapped in the town in the last few years.

Oregon Fried Chicken was called 5 Star Fried Chicken before.

There's an Arizona Fried Chicken next to Wet Rake Gardens just outside the town centre.

The former Dallas Fried Chicken (next door to West Virginia Fried Chicken) in the town centre is now Toronto Fried Chicken.

What's the most obscure US State or North American place you've seen used in a chicken shop name?

Related blog posts:

- Chicken Shops

- Rochdale

A retail time machine

Today is Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day.

I pretend to be a Time Traveler quite a bit by hunting out relics of the past that can still be seen today.

Old UK shop brands from my (time) travels

If you could once again shop at a long lost store which one would it be?

Dull Men's Club Calendar for 2021

Looking ahead to next year. Now.

The Dull Men's Club's brand new calendar for 2021 arrived yesterday and we're looking forward to reading up about our fellow dullards as the year progresses.

What does next year have in store?

We featured in the club's calendar back in 2017 for our never-ending quest to visit and document every miniature golf course in the UK.

You'll be able to find an update on our adventures within the 2021 edition too.

Dull events

This year has certainly been a strange one. While not completely dull, it has had its moments.

We had an enjoyable evening of mild excitement at the Dull Men's Club Anorak of the Year Award event in Manchester last November. I can't believe the world has changed so much since then.

I was also a speaker at the Dull Men's Club's 'Delightfully Dull, Brilliantly Boring Evening' at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in Preston back in 2018.

I'm moderately excited about speaking at Dull Men's Club events again the future.

About the Dull Men's Club

The Dull Men's Club celebrates the ordinary and the life-changing magic of simple, everyday, run-of-the-mill things.

Visit the Dull Men's Club website for more information.

The Dull Men's Club Calendar for 2021 will be available from Amazon.

Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day

It's Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day today. If you could go to any time period to play Miniature Golf when would it be?

Emily visited the Time Machine Minigolf course in Warsaw, Poland back in 2017.

My brother Christopher also visited a time travel themed GlowGolf minigolf course in Amsterdam in 2017.

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National Christmas Tree Day

Happy National Christmas Tree Day.

In Hyde

Today is National Christmas Tree Day.

Just got to make room in our ceiling for this tree

The first Christmas tree I saw this year was in Withington, Manchester. In July!

Do you have your Christmas Tree up yet?

I competed in a Christmas Tree Throwing Competition at a summer fete back in 2012. One of many obscure sports I've tried over the years

Pretending to be a Time Traveller

Today is Pretend to be a Time Traveller Day.

The closest I've been to time travel was when I saw this DeLorean Time Machine back in March this year.

Oregon Fried Chicken

We had planned to visit Oregon on holiday this year.

The closest we're getting to Oregon anytime soon is Oregon Fried Chicken in Rochdale

What's the most obscure US State you've seen used in a chicken shop name?

There's an Alaska Fried Chicken in Gatley, Stockport. That automatically makes me think of the cold.

Merry Christmas from Stockport

Merry Christmas to everyone from us here in sunny Stockport.

We're not sending any real cards this year as last year we posted out a hundred special Christmas minigolf postcards and only 5 arrived at their destination, and 2 of them were half destroyed, as the post box we put them in suffered some sort of incident.

Another "KFC"

 A look at Krispy Fried Chicken in Eccles.

Another KFC seen on our travels

Related blog posts:

- Chicken Shops

- KFC

Deane Video Centre - a lost video shop

A look at Deane Video Centre aka Valji's Convenience Store on Wigan Road in Deane, Bolton, Greater Manchester.

The Premier Express convenience shop isn't a video shop anymore.

Premier Stores is another convenience store brand owned by Tesco.

Last month we found a Video Box Office sign in a Happy Shopper shop in Ilkeston.

There is still a video shop - with lots of VHS tapes - operating in Bolton. You can find B.V.C - Bolton Video Centre in Little Lever. It's well worth a visit to step back in time.

Related blog posts:

- Video Shops

Hot tapes

You can't get burnt at that price.

Minigolf course visit 900 - a year ago today

We visited our 900th miniature golf course in the British Isles a year ago today.

The location was the indoor Pirate Adventure Golf course at the New York Thunderbowl tenpin bowling centre in Kettering, Northamptonshire.

We had a brilliant time at the New York Thunderbowl. The 9-hole adventure golf layout was a good challenge and we'd visit again 

Check out the New York Thunderbowl website for more information, opening times and prices for all of the activities at the centre.

Our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour

When our minigolfing adventures began in 2006 there were 600 miniature golf courses in the UK. We visited our 600th course at Goodrington Sands in Paignton, Devon. There are now well over a thousand places to play the game.

We've been to a total of 956 courses to date. In the last 14 years a number of new courses have come and gone, older courses have been updated or refurbished, while some layouts have been lost forever.

Our 900th course visit, including overseas venues, was at the North Bay Crazy Golf course in Scarborough in the summer of 2019.

We've been to 39 minigolf courses in eleven overseas countries including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

Our stop off at the Thunderbowl was en route to visit family and friends in Suffolk. Something we haven't been able to do this year.

Last year we hit 82 courses. This year we've been to 46 courses, including revisits, with 15 of the layouts being new courses to us. During the coronavirus pandemic we've been able to visit eight courses, playing two of them.

We had been on schedule to reach our 1,000th course this year and had a very strong start to 2020, visiting 20 courses in the first 20 days of January!

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Travel in 2020

I've barely travelled outside of Greater Manchester this year so it was nice to 'get away from it all' with a trip to Miami, California and Italy this afternoon.

Miami Sun Centre, California Wines Express and Little Italy on Wigan Road in Deane, Bolton

These shops are all on the Wigan Road in Deane, Bolton.

Related blog posts:

- Holidays at home - Stockport, 2020

- A postcard from Stockport

Toys R Us at the Riverside Retail Park in Nottingham

A look at a lost shop in Nottingham.

Many thanks to my friend and minigolf rival Jam Trubridge for sending over a snap of the old Toys R Us store at the Riverside Retail Park in Nottingham.

It's great to see the signage is still up.

It's another store for us to visit in the future as soon as it's safe to do so.

It'll be nice to meet up with Jam too as there are a lot of minigolf courses in Nottinghamshire we have yet to play on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour.

Former Toys R Us stores

Sadly Toys R Us closed in the UK in April 2018. Luckily there are still remnants of the brand on some retail parks in the UK. I worked in the Gipsy Lane store in Luton, Bedfordshire back in the year 2000.

This year we've also been to the old Toys R Us stores at Gemini Retail Park in Warrington, the Festival retail park in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Deepdale shopping centre in Preston and at the Wyvern Retail Park in Derby.

We took at look at the old Toys R Us store at the Central Retail Park in Ancoats, Manchester just prior to its demolition in March 2019.

Popeyes in Chesterfield

A look at Popeyes takeaway in Chesterfield.

We've seen other Popeyes takeaways in Blackpool, Southport and Edinburgh.