Chasing zombies on Hampstead Heath, a checkpoint dash around Hackney, escaping a lasertrap in Covent Garden. Joining Fire Hazard games has made me see and experience London in a completely different way, and discover parts I never knew existed.
Trying to smuggle a cashbox up my jumper, during a fake heist of an old police station in South London, has to be one of my highlights of 2011.
Between £10 and £21 for each activity, usually lasting a couple of hours. For some events 100% of the revenue is donated to Mind. The crew are great and events usually end in the pub.

fire-hazard.net
twitter.com/firehazardgames

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In a suburb just outside staid and stuffy Solihull there is a surprise lurking - Akamba an African art and craft shop, garden centre and cafe, with Caribbean food and added music - reggae, soul and funk. You never know what you are going to find: hand-made pots, Fairtrade African art, exotic African prints and posters, all overlooked by giant metal animals - zebras, giraffes, chimpanzees. Magical

www.akamba.co.uk
Tythe Barn Lane, Dickens Heath, Solihull, B90 1PH
+44(0)121 733 3111
Google map: bit.ly/thl5y0

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On an unassuming road in Hackney, tucked between hip coffee shops and scruffy auto repairs, you will find Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors.
Upon entering you will be greeted by a party of giant taxidermied antelope heads and African voodoo masks. Tomes of mythology and the occult line the bookshelves while armies of butterflies and beatles roam any left over spaces on the walls.
The resulting experience is a bit like falling down Alice's rabbit hole and re-emerging in a world that is part 17th century curiosity cabinet, part 70s sci-fi movie gone wrong.
As well as being toted as a museum of the weird and wonderful, the shop also holds regular art exhibitions. Framed works by the likes of Mervyn Peake and the Mexican surrealist Leonora Carrington have recently been displayed. There are also regular lectures (on subjects you never knew existed), workshops, puppet shows and films.
The shop is part of the wider 'Last Tuesday Society', who are also known for holding some of the most decadent masked balls and afternoon tea dances in London.

viktorwyndofhackney.co.uk/
11 Mare Street, London E8 4RP
+44 207 998 3617
Google map: bit.ly/v1XqfH

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A strange little shop, filled to bursting point with fairy, gnome, imp and pixie figurines. The whole place is like entering the underworld. The shop itself is definitely on the cosy side, and with fairies hanging from the ceiling and surrounding you it seems positively minuscule. The fairies and pixies definitely rule this shop, humans can only visit for as long as you can stand the powerful incense that fills whatever room is left.

57 Cockburn Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1BS
+44(0)131 225 8207
Google map: bit.ly/tbEBIL

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In the heart of historic Bloomsbury, just opposite the British Museum on Bury Place, lies the wonderful Blade Rubber Stamps shop. I have spent hours enthralled by the weird and wacky stamp designs on display. This shop takes me back to a time of traditional innocence and reinvigorates and inspires the dormant creativity left behind in childhood. The shelves are lined with stamps in all shapes and sizes but if you want something more personal, customised designs can be made-to-order. Ink pads can be found in a delightful array of colours. There are seasonal designs and plenty of Santa Claus', tree designs, angels and snowmen ready to be stamped onto personalised cards in time for Christmas. The shop also stocks everything you could possibly need to make beautifully designed scrapbooks including glitter, stickers, buttons, brads and eyelets. Once you are hooked or if you need to kickstart your creativity they even offer classes to help improve your decorating skills.

www.bladerubberstamps.co.uk
12 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL
+44(0)845 873 7005
Google map: bit.ly/ublTzt

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Brighton has been a home for embracing all things weird and wonderful for years. Every year hirsute gentlemen enter the World Mustache Championships held in the city and those who want to show a bit more can join the annual naked bike ride. Most unusually the musical among us can enter The UK Air Guitar Championships held in a local club. Want weird and wonderful? Come to Brighton!

www.visitbrighton.com
Google map: bit.ly/raKjtN

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Housed in a 17th water-mill in the depths of the countryside, the Bakelite Museum is an extraordinary collection of early plastics and domestic paraphernalia. There are ovens and dentist's tools, Bakelite radios, egg-cups, hairdryers, musical instruments, spectacles, false teeth and even a Bakelite coffin, all beautifully arranged around the workings of the old mill. There is also a selection of vintage caravans that you can rent on-site for the weekend.

Orchard Mill, Williton, Somerset TA4 4NS
www.bakelitemuseum.co.uk
+44(0)1984 632133
Nearest station Taunton, or Williton on the West Somerset (steam) Railway.
Google map: bit.ly/n50tmu

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Skye is renowned for its wacky geology, and the northern peninsula of Trotternish boasts an array of bewildering natural weirdness; from a massive rock needle to an enchanting 'Faerie Glen'. The most bizarre place, however, must be inside the mind of the eccentric curator of this one-roomed 'exhibition' tucked away on the peninsula's west coast. Upon entering, the first impression is of nothing more than a collection of junk recovered from the beach, but a closer look reveals a surreal and often very humorous story or proverb attached to each artifact ("Life is like the wind- it's not there when there isn't any" is a personal favourite.)

Just outside of the village of Kilmuir on the A885 road north-west of Portree. The exhibition is signposted, but the road itself has no name (towards Bornesketaig on some maps). The exhibition is in a green-roofed shack about half a mile down the road towards the small bay.
Google map: bit.ly/qtW7ab

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Many people whizz through the borderlands in their haste to get to “Scotland proper” – up north – Edinburgh, Glasgow, the Highlands, lochs and glens. However, if you are travelling on the A697 I guarantee you won’t regret taking a slight detour, a few miles south of Coldstream, to visit this small, imaginative and eccentric sculpture garden.
In the quiet village of Branxton you can come face to face with Lawrence of Arabia on his camel and Winston Churchill with his cigar as well as all the wild animals you could ever hope to meet in one garden - giraffes, wild boar and penguins to name but a few. There are some fantastic teeth on display – (check out the shark) – I think there must have been some deal going on with a local dentist! Created in the 60s and 70s, by John Fairnington to entertain his son Edwin who had cerebral palsy, each life size statue is full of character and very endearing and I’m convinced you will leave the garden with a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

www.alnwick.org.uk/menag.htm
The Concrete Menagerie, Branxton Village, Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland
TD12 4SL
Google map: bit.ly/qRGKmk

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St.Pancras Gardens is surely the quirkiest park in London full of quiet corners and eccentric memorials.
In the middle sits St.Pancras Old Church, one of the oldest sites of Christian worship in Europe. The surrounding park is what remains of the old churchyard cut through from 1863 by construction of the Midland Railway into St.Pancras Station. The exhumation of the graves was overseen by Thomas Hardy, then a young architect, who placed many of the headstones in a circular pattern around an ash tree, whose roots now entangle the stones around what is known as Hardy's Tree.
When the churchyard was re-opened as a public park in 1877 the Burdett-Coutts Sundial had been added as a memorial to all those whose graves had been exhumed and moved elsewhere.
Among the graves that were left in situ are those of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft and the monument designed by Sir John Soane for his wife. The latter will look very familiar to most people because it was the inspiration for Gilbert Scott's design of the K2 red telephone box.
All this for free in a lovely park with a beautiful fence and gates all recently restored with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

191 Saint Pancras Way, London NW1 9NH
+44(0)20 7424 0724
Google map: bit.ly/mSFivF

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The Kinema is a traditional 1920s cinema showing all the latest films. It is a fantastic place with intermissions, old-fashioned paper cinema tickets, a compton organ (that plays during the interval!) and a fantastic sweetie counter.
Highly recommend.

www.thekinemainthewoods.co.uk
Coronation Road, Woodhall Spa, Lincs, LN10 6QD
+44(0)1526 352166
Google map: bit.ly/psz0qW

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David, the landlord at the Barley Mow pub in the pretty Derbyshire village of Bonsall will regale you with ambitious plans to develop the car park as the first UFO Space Centre in the UK or sign you up for one of his Landlords Walks.
However, the Mow’s major claim to fame is as host of World Championship Hen Racing. This eccentric mix of serious racing and training and hopeless enthusiasm means that the thoroughbreds of the hen racing world stand as much chance as any have-a-goer who can acquire a hen and turn up on the day.
Occasional battles between competitors see yellow warning cards for fighting on the track. Hens might take the warning to heart and reform their behaviour, or ignore it, get the red card and be sent off. Competitors have been known to travel from as far afield as Belper (10 miles), Chesterfield (15 miles), Finland and Australia.
A great family day out, the World Championship supports the Battery Hen Welfare Trust, a registered charity which aims to provide a comfortable retirement for battery hens. (www.thehenshouse.co.uk.)

www.barleymowbonsall.co.uk/
The Barley Mow, Bonsall, DE4 2AY
+44(0)1629 825685
Google map: bit.ly/qNnpsR

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This is held annually on New Year's Day. Twenty teams of two people paddle down the River Dove for a quarter of a mile, climb out of their boats and jump 30 foot off the bridge into the River Dove. They then swim to the edge and run across the field to the finish line - the Okeover Pub, Mappleton. Crowds gather and there is food, hot drinks, as well as copious amounts of alcohol on offer! Great way to start the New Year.

Google map: bit.ly/nmCGcf

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Only in the UK could The World Worm Charming Championships be held. A quirky afternoon out, with great excitement when the world record was beat for the heaviest worm found. You would never guess such fun could be had from a 3m x 3m plot of grass.

Willaston County Primary School, Willaston, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 6QQ
Held annually in June
Google map: bit.ly/pc2PEi
www.wormcharming.com/

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One of England’s oldest visitor attractions which
opened to the public in 1630, Mother Shipton’s Cave in Knaresborough, Yorkshire contains the only known petrifying spring in England. The cave is the legendary birthplace of a 16th century prophetess, Mother Shipton, England’s answer to Nostradamus. My grandparents used to take me here when I was a kid and since I wished for a bike from the wishing well and then two months later got a bike for my birthday, I was always keen to visit again!
The well water's extremely high mineral content means that everything in its path turns into stone, leaving behind mineral deposits that build up to form a crust of new rock. Visitors to the petrifying well can make a wish by placing their hand in the waters and see all sorts of petrified items hanging from the rock face including shoes, teddy bears, a hat belonging to John Wayne and Agatha Christie’s handbag. Nearby is the Knaresborough viaduct, a museum, parks, riverside walks and boat hire along the River Nidd. A brilliant day out if you like messing about in boats, eccentric quirky places and enjoy a bit of local history.

Mother Shiptons Cave, Prophecy Lodge, High Bridge, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire HG5 8DD
+44(0)1423 864600
www.mothershiptonscave.com
Google map: bit.ly/q8m6ax

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If strange and eccentric is your thing, then you'll not go wrong in the imposing Camelot Castle in Tintagel. Perched on the cliffs like a giant sandcastle overlooking the ethereal ruins of the real castle, this is a Victorian station terminus hotel of grand proportions. The station and rail line have long since gone, but the owners of the hotel (none other than John Mappin, heir of Mappin & Webb and his stunning wife Irena from Kazakhstan) have maintained the grandiose Gothic feel of this monstrous building in a recent refurbishment. Beware! The owners and the residential artist Ted Stourton are scientologists ... but don't let it put you off. Other than some gently crazy conversations about Super Power around the fabulous King Arthur's round table in front of a roaring fire (and no, I was neither converted nor felt intimidated), this really is a friendly, quirky find. You can just pop-in for coffee or have the full-blown wedding package, but either way, your dogs and your cats will be as welcome as you are. Oh - and the whole place is stuffed full of Ted's original (in every sense of the word) art work. He may even take you down to the bowels of the castle to show you his lightbox. Honest! It's an advertised option. Don't forget to take the whole thing with a light heart and absolutely make sure you go around Tintagel Castle. It'll hurricane the cobwebs away.

www.camelotcastle.com
Tintagel, Cornwall England PL34 0DQ
+44 (0)1840 770202
Google map: bit.ly/pZOSGH

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The National Trust owned home of the eccentric Edwardian inventor Otto Overbeck, in Salcombe, Devon. Find the hidden room full of dolls and listen to the "polyphon" (a giant Victorian music box). Best of all, see Otto's invention, the "rejuvinator", designed to renew youth through electric shocks. This quirky place (kids can search for Fred the friendly ghost) is in a beautiful location, on the South West Coastal Path (Prawle Point, three miles walk away, is breathtaking) looking down on Salcombe and its bay. Take time to explore the house's exotic gardens, and to have a well earned drink in Salcombe itself, a charming little port.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-overbecks
Sharpitor, Salcombe, Devon TQ8 8LW
+44(0)1548 842893
Google map: bit.ly/n0WaWo

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A deep, bell-shaped, man-made chalk cave beneath the streets of Royston, believed to date from the 13th Century. It was deliberately sealed and forgotten until its accidental re-discovery. Its long concealment may have a lot to do with the bizarre Christian and pre-Christian imagery carved into the chalk walls - Sheela-na-gigs and Saint Catherine, the Holy Family (or are they?), knights, martyrs, magical creatures. They form a sort of frenzied panorama, their stories linked in ways that modern eyes can no longer see. The cave itself has sinister dells and niches and platforms. Royston was a town of the Knights Templar - it is also the place where Ermine Street and the Icknield Way intersect.

www.roystoncave.co.uk
Melbourn Street, Royston, Hertfordshire, SG8 7BZ
+44(0)1763 245484
Google map: bit.ly/qJlfZa

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This wacky family attraction is a Scarborough institution. Council employees hide inside model ships on Peasholm Park lake and re-enact sea battles. It started in 1927 and they joke that it’s the smallest manned navy in the world. Special effects include bombs, gunfire and aircraft on wires, and the whole thing is preceded by an organist playing in a floating pagoda.

So grab a drink or an ice cream from the cafe or kiosk and take your seat for the The Battle of Peasholm. It takes place at 3pm (on different days of the week according to which of the summer months you visit) and costs £3.70 for adults, £2.10 for children.

www.peasholmpark.com/content/view/9/9/
21-23 Victoria Park, Scarborough, North Yorkshire YO12 7TS
+44(0)1723 500954
Google map: bit.ly/ofOQ1r

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The Museum of Amusements, hidden in the Cheshire countryside, was under pressure to deliver when I visited it. There was no timely bus from Tattenhall to Burwardsley, so I ended up walking several miles in drumming rain. This doggedness was rewarded with an enchanting afternoon in the company of dozens of carefully restored vintage penny arcade amusements, many dating from Edwardian times. Bagatelle and pinball; laughing sailors and fortune tellers; haunted houses, shooting galleries and saucy peepshows...you can play them all, clutching a margarine tub of old English pennies. An unassuming jewel, this museum is a haunted portal into the funfairs and pier shows of an almost vanished Britain. Roll up, roll up!

Cheshire Workshops, Burwardsley, Tattenhall Cheshire CH3 9PF
museumofamusements.co.uk

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