Modest Mango

It is an honor and privilege to present myself as the newest contributor to the wonderful Modest Mango. The more attentive of you may recognize me as a member of the (almost) defunct Fast Food Tour of America ’09 blog. I was the hot one.

My role here is a simple one. Commissioner of the Mango Tour Fantasy Football League, about to begin its inaugural season. It’s a straightforward situation: 12 competitors, 6 matches a week, 4 teams advance to the play offs, and in January, at the 3rd annual Superburrl event, a single champion shall lift the Liberty Bell.

This coming Sunday is the MTL Draft. We shall all meet online and for a few hours, thrash out our squads, and at last, begin the long anticipated season.

Here is the draft order…

And here are the divisions for battle, which in turn, determine the fixture list.

Each team plays their division rivals twice, and each other team once throughout the season. The winner of each division progress to the play offs, joined by one wild card, i.e. the runner up with the best record. These play off teams will be seeded 1 thru 4. Week 15 of the NFL season sees Seed 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3, and the winners of those play in the Mango Tour Championship game in week 16.

There is not much more to say at this stage. As Commissioner, I will make sure the rules are followed and everything runs smoothly. I will also report to the Modest Mango blog as deemed necessary. Later in the week, there may or may not be, depending on how depressing my new life in Glasgow becomes, a short blog on draft preperation.

Until then, I leave you with a haunting image. As this is the first MTL Championship, we really have no idea who will make a real run at the title. We can’t tell our EPL teams from our Irn Bru Division 3 teams. But if nothing else, we know this… the men below are not to be trusted. Underestimate them at your peril.

Adieu for noo.

Episode 10 of Burr’s Two Fingers to Clements Tour of Cafes took us all the way to the outskirts of the Greater Belfast area – The Bay Tree, High Street, Holywood.

The Bay Tree’s cinnamon scones are in fact the best in the UK according to the BMW Good Food Ride. Does the Good Food Ride actually have a category specifically for cinnamon scones? Who knows. Unfortunately, UK’s best cinnamon scones were sold out (naturally), so we had to settle for other baked goods that I assumed were not the UK’s best. They were still pretty good though.

We really liked The Bay Tree. It actually wasn’t expensive and served very good quality food and drink. I certainly enjoyed my non-UK’s best wheaten date scone. Here’s your video review…

Link

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Scrolling back through the last two months of MangoBlogs it is embarrassing to see how much Phil has blogged and contrastly how little I have contributed. Ironically that has led to a greater Mango readership and notoriety among worldwidewebbers. All due to Phil… Maybe the Mango will become famous enough that were you to type ‘Michael Johnston’ Google Suggest will read like:

michael johnston + awful

michael johnston + cliche

michael johnston + famous + ex-gay

michael johnston + boring

michael johnston + shit

michael johnston + twat

One can only hope. But it’s all wrong! I have actually done loads of stuff in the last couple of months and I had planned to put up some blogs when I returned to the UK from USA but it’s all been a bit of a mad rush back into hospital life. Anyway, I have started my placement in paediatrics in East Lancashire Hospital Trust and am living weekdays in the no man’s land that is Blackburn doctor/student residence. It’s INTERESTING. So interesting that once I have some kind of internet access there and figure out a way to capture photographs somehow (my Samsung SLR died in Montana and the LX3 is back with Pa in Belfast) I will be vehemently blogging with regularity about things like manual handling seminars with such eloquence nobody will be reading Chan’s blogs! (That was too long a sentence.) Anyway, today I did have a manual handling session and the similarities were just hilarious:

(Post edited to include part 3 of documentary.)

Belfast-based ultimate frisbee team Ultra Mega Super Magic Sparkle Angelfish Go! 3: EX Plus Alpha made their third career competition appearance this year in Northern Ireland’s biggest ultimate frisbee event, Belfast Summer League, in which over 70 players took part throughout June, July and August. The Fish placed 4th in the league that was won by Comber-based CHASE, with The Swerve of Coleraine taking Spirit.

Fans were surprised The Fish even managed to pull together a squad this year, with star players Christopher Burress and Michael "Vick" Johnston having been suspended following gun and animal abuse charges respectively. Luckily, The Fish are a dedicated group and joining the core team of Philip Chan, Nigel Chan, Ryan Mulligan and John McConkey were returning Fish: George Paxton, Jonny Baillie, Peter Alexander and John Meenan. In addition, veteran Jeremy Moore and undrafted rookies Nick Shaw and Andy "T1000" McNeice became integral members of the squad.

The Fish, who made their debut a mere nine months ago, are going from strength to strength. The constant recruitment of young, enthusiastic players means that the future is bright for the Belfast-based team that draws its players from universities throughout the whole of the UK. They intend to enter more competitions in the near future.

The Fish are always looking for new players of all abilities and are a coed team. If you are interested in playing ultimate frisbee please contact the team. To find out more about Belfast Ultimate, look no further than this excellent documentary by Kebab Hammer’s Luke Carlisle:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3