:: blog @ jonnybaillie.co.uk ::

2010 :: August Update

Jonny Baillie — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 17:00:12 +0000

August 2010, the dawn broke for working life. If there were any doubts regarding whether student days had ended, they were quickly destroyed. There is a big temptation to just talk about work, after all in now takes up most of the week. However panic not, I’ve no intention of ever discussing what goes on at work. There’s a big danger that you can let work take over a truck load of your life, you’ve just got to fight that from happening!

So what all has August had in store? Well a week of holiday. Half of which was spent back at home in sunny Northern Ireland where we celebrated my cousins 30th and also had a mini family reunion of sorts with our english cousins coming over to join in the birthday festivities. Such festivities included a day out around Strangford Lough, dinner out in East Belfast, then Sunday lunch back at home. With the remainder of the time at home I lazed about, and then spent an evening out playing pool with Hendy up in Belfast, whilst watching and inwardly laughing that Spurs got beaten by Young Boys FC, granted a week later Spurs did actually qualify, gutting.

Speaking of football, the new fantasy football league season got under way – and my team, this year called “Banana Banana” have started decently, currently situated 2nd in the mini league after 3 weeks, which so far is a vast improvement on last year.

Away from football, back in Scotland with the remainder of my holiday, Michael, Suzy and myself beasted our way up Ben Lomond after some initial problems in getting to the carpark. Think the video below sums up the whole day pretty well.

And that pretty much was the month of August.

2010 :: July Update

Jonny Baillie — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:59:13 +0000

Ah July, one of the cloudiest on record in Northern Ireland. This month was wedding and holiday season… The month kicked off with Richard & Lidia’s wedding at Queens Park Baptist in Glasgow with the reception afterwards in Hampden. It had a good Scottish and Spanish feel to it, with ceilidh dancing and flamenco dancing, and Neil loving the opportunity to practice his Spanish, which he seized with gusto! That very same day, was Helen’s wedding back in Northern Ireland, alas we couldn’t make both but she looked amazing and the photos make it look like everyone had a great time.

From Glasgow, it was back to Northern Ireland to catch up with friends and family. At this point we still didn’t have a new flat sorted, and packing stuff up in West Princes Street was still in its infancy. Still had a great time back in Northern Ireland, not too mention a good weekend with the guys up in Donegal. Next it was a quick return back to Scotland for Mairi and William’s wedding down in Ayr. It was another great wedding, with some excellent ceilidh dancing and just great to see William and Mairi get married and also to catch up with friends like Eryn, over from Canada, and Naomi who’d worked so hard on her art project this year, and not to forget other friends from uni who we hadn’t chatted too since the end of May as on graduation, wasn’t really much opportunities to chat…

After the wedding, Jonnie C departed from Glasgow off to work down in England, conveniently escaping to clean the kitchen of our old flat. For Neil and myself, it was back to Northern Ireland to catch up with friends and family again and prepare to say goodbye for a while, as starting official work dawned. In the midst of this, Neil and myself manically hunted around gumtree and other websites trying to find flats to go and view. Neil got back a few days before I did and started work on viewing flats and well to keep the story short he viewed one we had a look @ on gumtree, and well we got it. So we moved in on the last day of July. However before that we had yet another week of work shadowing, not forgetting epic nights of packing and cleaning. Then we finally said goodbye to university living on West Princes Street…

2010 :: Donegal

Jonny Baillie — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:00:29 +0000

Two years had passed since this, and after much talk and facebook message discussions plans eventually fell into place. It wasn’t all smooth planning; people needed to get time off work this time, a sign of changed times since university, and I needed to get back to Scotland for Mairi’s wedding which was made trickier as the boat was sold out on July 13th due to people heading back to Scotland after the marches. However, it all worked out fine in the end. We returned to the same house just outside Ardara, with the same people and the addition of David Burns. This time it was known as Jonny Gamble’s unofficial stag-do with Jonny Gamble in presentia. Activities included Waterfall swimming, Fifa 10 playing, Call of Duty playing, World Cup watching, Aerobi, Beach football, Bin Cricket, Beach cricket amongst other things. Here are a selection of photos from the weekend…

2010 :: June Update

Jonny Baillie — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:15:20 +0000

Its the end of another chapter, and before the next chapter begins in August we’ve got a break to look forward to. That last chapter, aka the University Years, ended with an epic weekend of taking in yet more places in Scotland before officially graduating, and thus ending the university years.

Before getting to the epic weekend, a quick re-cap on the last month: Navs conference up in Arbroath, Great Glen Way walk from Fortwilliam to Inverness before the last weekend – Stag do, Graduation Ball, and then Graduation itself. And so to the last weekend.

Richard Workman’s last weekend of not being a married man was spent up in the Cairngorms, more precisely in Ballater. There were many activities – 4×4 driving, quad biking, clay pigeon shooting, go-Karting, not to mention Richards impressive singing of “Wind beneath my Wings” in the middle of Karaoke in a random bar amongst other stories. Following this, Sunny Jabal drove the delightful country roads from Ballater to the hit town of Arbroath, where after failing to have a Smokie during the Navs conference, the record was put right. From Arbroath it was another 30 minute or so drive into St Andrews, home of golf, and yet another place Scotland I’d never been too before. We made it just in time to catch the end of the first half of the England game. We then proceeded to watch the remainder of the game and watched as England got dumped out – there was much celebration by many in the year. However, it wasn’t just a fateful day for England. My Canon PowerShot G9 was broken. I dropped it from the height of a bed, onto carpeted floor. Should have been grand I thought, tragically not – the dreaded words “Lens Error” appeared, and to cut along story short it was broke and is costing a fair packet to get repaired. Consequently, I’ve got next to no photos of the ball, and as someone else has my memory card I’ll have to wait to get pictures up. Anyway, the ball was good – night 1 was a Las Vegas themed fancy dress shin-dig complete with roulette, black-jack and Texas-hold’em, then the second night was the actual ball.

Finally we all got back to Glasgow for Tuesday, so as people could be ready for graduation today, and well that’s the end of the chapter. A new one begins in August.

2010 :: Great Glen Way

Jonny Baillie — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:00:38 +0000

Having ventured to foreign countries in the last few years, Neil and myself both thought we should stick closer to home this year. Our rough theme for holidaying in the UK this year was “highlands & islands”, however so far its looking more Highlands than islands, as due to our own separate plans we haven’t quite got dates set for visiting any of the islands sorted (still time). And so for the highlands part of it, having heard a friend talk about the Great Glen Way, we thought we’d copy them… In a nut-shell the walk involved walking 73 miles or 117km between Fort William & Inverness (aka the capital of the highlands). Unlike the attempt a few years back to walk between Glasgow and Edinburgh via the canal (which was roughly 60-70 miles allowing for the canals meandering route, and our detour into Falkirk) in less than 24 hours, this time we were taking it more leisurely – setting off on the Monday and getting the train back on the Friday, before Neil headed North again to do yet more British Red Cross Work, and I lounged round Glasgow, keeping busy playing football and catching up with people. Our original plan had been to stay in youth hostels through the journey as we couldn’t be bothered carrying a tent, however that plan back-fired so instead we camped for 2 nights and stayed at youth hostels for 2 nights. We had hoped to go to a few pubs to keep up with the world cup action, however instead we ended up repeatedly bumping into our Dutch friends, battling the midges and learning through others what was going on in the world of football. Anyway, now its time for the more detailed break down of the days…

Day 1: Fort William to somewhere near Clunes After a 3 hour bus journey, a pub lunch and a quick dash round Morrison’s in Fort William we finally set off on the Great Glen Way, having found a sign in the car park that was pointing the direction we should start walking in. From there we set off on what would prove a random meandering route out of Fort William trying to get onto the Caledonian canal and to Neptune’s Staircase.

This staircase is a flight of loch’s, which the sign ther claimed, are famous. There’s something satisfying watching alot of mechanical stuff work, and all the more enjoyable with water rushing here and there, and boats going up and down heights. Smart stuff.

The rest of the day continued on along the canal tow path where we passed a few fellow Europeans, this time, Germans cycling, and a few on a boat. Having walked for what felt like hours, we finally decided to set up camp in the middle of some forest with our front door view looking out over Loch Lochy, which was not a bad view. Plan was we would go swimming… We got down to the shore front having battled over sharp rocks, then meandered into the water to knee depth. Realising it was pure baltic, I, as they say in northern ireland, lapped it, and retreated back to the shore negotiating the sharp rocks. Neil on the other hand manned up and dived in, looking like a graceful gazelle. After the water, we tried to sit about and get some reading done but the midges attacked so we retreated and called it a night.

Day 2: Somewhere Near Clunes to Invergary Having not brought roll mats for the tent, getting to sleep proved a problem. Adding to the fact that there was no cloud cover, it was baltic that night. I stumbled outside at 4:30am to use the bathroom, and was greeted by a ridiculous sunrise.

Still, I managed to get another few hours of sleep in before we were on our way @ 9am, walking past stunning houses and saying hello to the locals. The rest of the day included walking the rest of Loch Lochy, stopping for a cup of coffee on a pub boat, walking up a mini hill for a few of Loch Oich, then descending into Invergary to stay at the youth hostel for the night.

It was here we met our friends from the Netherlands. They’d walked the West Highland Way, and had continued onto the Great Glen Way. There were 5 of them, though 1 of them drove the car to transport all their gear and provide them with lunch and coffee breaks along the way. Turns out 2 of them run a travelling business which sees them guide people on walking holidays all around the world. They stated it doesn’t pay much, but that they see the world, alot of it. Seems like a pretty cool way to live to me! Day 3: Invergary to Somewhere after Invermoriston Ok, confession time. Invergary is on what is known as the Invergary link of the Great Glen Way. The link stems from the fact that it is an alternative route that was added so people could check out other small towns along the route. However, turned out that after Invergary the route to rejoin the main walk was closed due to forestry operations. Not wanting to walk back 5 miles or up a hill to get where we’d been yesterday, we reluctantly grabbed a bus, which in fairness the great glen way signs said to do. The signs other alternative was to phone Susan the taxi driver. Anyway, so after a sneaky lift we arrived in Fort Augustus and again were treated to another flight of canal lochs, this time complete with swing bridge that actually opened when we where there, no doubt much to the annoyance of traffic, but to the enjoyment of the tourists. It was a very quaint little village, and much like Neptune’s staircase, the lochs had very nice street lights, very olde worlde, which am sure would look sweet at night.

Away from Fort Augustus, we trekked onwards and upwards, taking in views of Loch Ness, hoping to see Nessie, and eventually arrived in Invermoriston where we had an amazing venison burger. Severely tasty and filling. Additionally we were treated to the sight of a Japanese tour bus turning up and its occupants rushing out to get a photo of a highland cow, and even some getting a photo with a lorry driver and his lorry. I did have to ask myself why?!

After our stop here, we cracked up an epic hill, then battled along some forest paths then found a place to camp about a third of the way into the next days walk. However, the midges again were out in force so we dived into the tent to avoid them and called that another day. Day 4: Somewhere after Invermoriston to Drumnadrochit Day 4 was a relatively short day of walking. We continued walking through more forest paths after getting the tent down whilst braving yet another midge festival.

Come 11 o’clock the route takes you away from Loch Ness, up a hill past a few houses and caused us to bump into Connie our Dutch friend from Invergary, where she offered us a cup of coffee, and who were we to refuse? So after coffee we continued on, along a pretty boring stretch of road, and eventually descended down the hill and into Drumnadrochit were we stayed at the youth hostel. Whilst in town we checked out some bar, apparently highland bar of the year this year, and sampled a few of their ale’s. Additionally we headed out for dinner, and I had a lovely gammon steak (favourite food in the world!) and met a guy studying in Bristol called Michael who was walking the opposite direction, and who provided, some, shall we say interesting chat! Following the hostels advice we turned up to Urquhart castle after 7pm. At this point the castle is closed (it costs £7 to go in during the day, and the castle is a ruin!!) so there were no tourists about, and though we didn’t get down to walk around the castle (in fairness all you needed to do was climb over a gate) it did provide a photo opportunity.

Back in the hostel our Dutch friends where there, and we also got chatting to a German couple as well. This at times was a bit tense (apparently the Dutch and Germans in general don’t get on to well together) but we were all united with much joy by the fact that France were beaten 2-0 by Mexico. Day 5: Drumnadrochit to Inverness Day 5 began early with a rude awakening with some guy banging on the door of the hostel at 6:30am looking for a friend, who had got up and left 30 minutes earlier. A bit tired, we kicked off walking just after 8am and beasted it up the final major uphill section of the walk for our final views over Loch Ness.

After that the route takes you out of the Great Glen and along another boring road, before entering a forest, then popping up on a hill on the North side of Inverness. From here we trekked down, past the old hospital which is being converted into nice flats, and then eventually down to rejoin the Caledonian canal, then through a really nice park at the River Ness. The final section then sees you walk through the city to end up at Inverness castle, aka the courthouse, were you are greeted with an underwhelming sign welcoming you to the end…

As for Inverness, we arrived in glorious sunshine and I must say I really liked the city, even though I was there for about 6 hours at maximum. The accent of the people is lovely, and it had a kind of European feel to it with people out and about in river side restaurants, with lovely green parks all over the show. And it was another place that when we got the train to leave, I was actually feeling sad to be leaving. After chatting to a friend since being back in Glasgow, they said they had experienced a similar feeling of sadness when leaving as they too had also really loved the area.

However, the journey didn’t end there. Whilst Neil tried to sleep on the train, I was like a kid in a sweet shop on the train… The train sped for 3 hours through ridiculous scenery in the Cairngorms, couple that with the gorgeous weather, seriously it was amazing. A fantastic way to end 5 days of walking.

Video Updates

2010 :: May Update

Jonny Baillie — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:00:26 +0000

The month of May ended sombrely, with the death of my mum’s brother, my uncle. He died peacefully at home, at the age of 62. He was a pretty amazing guy, who kept going in spite of recent medical circumstances. He headed up the Corrymeela community on Northern Ireland’s north coast for the last 7 years. More information can be found here, here, here and here.

- – -

Prior to the shock of the above, this month had seen the end of my time as an undergraduate at Glasgow Uni, and additionally the start of many partings of ways. Colin & Eryn and the kids are back off to Canada, other friends are heading back to Northern Ireland to work, others to England and others are getting married.

Other minor things from this month included managing to swindle my way to go see Flight of the Conchords in the Clyde Auditorium, which was an entertaining Friday night out. Additionally there were many nights at various friends houses playing various ridiculous games and going by a new nickname of “Archie”. And when the weather was good, also managed to bag a Munro (Ben Lomond) and take a splash in Loch Lomond, before heading to Edinburgh to catch up with a friend and my cousin before the sad news filtered through.

And that was May.

2010 :: The Election

Jonny Baillie — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:00:11 +0000

Currently the Queen still hasn’t asked any party leader to form a government of the UK yet, on the streets of Glasgow posters are already up and graffiti up saying “Tories Out”. Meanwhile on facebook, my news feed has shown lots of status updates about how the country is about to go to ruin with the Conservatives in power, and general dislike, actually who am I kidding, hatred towards the Conservatives. Which has got me thinking, should I dislike them? Should I be standing up against them? Have people just gone with what their politically aware friends have said? Is it because they don’t reflect or understand the issues here in Glasgow or Scotland? Or are people just prejudiced against them here in Scotland? Though I will say – some of the doomsday predictions on facebook are making me laugh; I think people have forgotten Scotland has a devolved government which makes decisions for itself and can choose how it spends the money it receives from Westminster. Additionally people need to remember that cuts have to come to reduce the deficit, the years of opulence need to come to an end. Having only previously voted in Northern Ireland, where let’s face it, our parties never go on to become the main governing party, voting here on the mainland, in my mind opened up the possibility of voting potentially for actually one of the parties that would go on to form the government at Westminster. And so where do you start when trying to decide which party to vote? Do you just vote the way your parents do? Do you vote the way your friends do? Or do you look at the policies etc. I wont lie and state I had any grand ideas of who to vote for, because I didn’t. In my head I just want a change in government, as prior to the election parliament has had the massive expensive scandals, and then with regards to Labour there seemed to be much in-fighting with people metaphorically trying to stab people in the back, which in my mind was demonstrated by the whole “rock the boat” episode. Additionally over the years I cant help but think the parties major policies have become pretty similar over the previous years. But mainly, I just wanted change. Aside from this the other aspect I took into consideration was candidates who had signed up to the Westminster declaration of Christian conscious of whose previous record appeared to be supportive. Here in Glasgow North the incumbent MP wasn’t supportive, her voting record had been against such things, but then again none of the alternatives had declared their thoughts. In the end I decided to vote tactically hoping to get a change of government. That said when it actually came to putting an X on the piece of paper I actually had doubts as to whether I could bring myself to vote for any of them. In the end up, the candidate I chose didn’t make it and came second. Alas my hope that there would be a backlash against the corruption in westminster with the expenses scandal and the corruption I perceived within the city council didn’t come to fruition. What have I learnt? Choosing someone to vote for is harder the more you think about things. You can think about how it will affect you, your community, your city, your profession, the economy, your beliefs and of course your country. And with many things in life, you’ll never find the perfect party. People’s beliefs and ideas about various things will always clash, just adds a bit of colour to things. In the meantime we wait for a new government to form…

2010 :: April Update

Jonny Baillie — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 23:59:19 +0000

And so 2010′s “Volcano” month has slipped into history, or infamy. There may yet be a second volcano month this year or in the years to come; at least the next time it does happen, I wont actually think someone is playing a very very late April fools joke.

Aside from that, April brought with it few showers, and instead some pretty decent weather and changes to deal with. Following weeks of lectures, the beard went. Next up my laptop for the last 5 years earned itself an upgrade – it’s now sporting Windows 7 and I think come the summer it will return home and possibly become father’s computer. At the same time as the Windows 7 upgrade, I got myself a new computer with a bit more power and pep behind it.

Another looming change is actually starting to work in August. Thankfully, the last stretch of the course is 6 weeks of work shadowing of which 3 have now been completed, and all being well starting in August wont be so scary, though the body adjusting to the work hours might be. Still so far I think all of us working together have enjoyed it, including the random teaching days including a Myres Briggs Personality type indicator…

In this you fall into 1 of 16 personality types. The instructors stressed it wasn’t about boxing you into a group, and that we can bend and float into the other types, but the one which you come out is your “default” mode. The exercise following the questions in the book came out with myself being ENTJ, however my computer result came out saying mine was ENFP, but then when we analysed where there were differences between the computer and our on the day assessment I changed again and instead ended up being part of of the ESFJ. So in a nut-shell does this sound like me?

ESFJs focus on the outside world and assess their experiences subjectively. They largely base their judgments on their belief system and on the effects of actions on people. ESFJs are literal and concrete, trusting the specific, factual information gathered through their physiological senses.

ESFJs project warmth through a genuine interest in the well-being of others. They are often skilled at bringing out the best in people, and they want to understand other points of view. They are serious about their responsibilities, seeing what needs to be done and then doing it. Generally proficient at detailed tasks, they enjoy doing little things that make life easier for others. They value tradition and the security it offers.

Easily hurt, ESFJs seek approval. They take pleasure in other people’s happiness. They give generously but expect appreciation in return. Sensitive to the physical needs of others, they respond by offering practical care. As expert people readers, ESFJs often adapt their manner to meet the expectations of others. However, they may have difficulty recognizing the shortcomings of loved ones.

ESFJs tend to be vocal in expressing their sense of right and wrong. Their value system derives from the external standards defined by their community, as opposed to a personal set of ethics. (This is one of the traits that distinguishes them from their ENFJ counterparts.) ESFJs raised in an environment of high ethical standards tend to display true generosity and kindness. However, those who grow up surrounded by a skewed set of values may develop a false sense of integrity and use their people skills to selfishly manipulate others—particularly if their intuition is poorly developed, leaving them unable to foresee the consequences of their actions.

ESFJs seek structured, controlled environments, and tend to be good at creating a sense of order. They generally feel insecure in an atmosphere of uncertainty. They value the rule of law and expect the same of others. ESFJs may be less interested in understanding the concepts behind the rules, tending to shy away from the abstract and impersonal. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESFJ)

That in a nut-shell was April 2010. There were a few other things like a frisbee tournament, video filming and a few goodbyes said, at least for now.

2010 :: April Mini-Update

Jonny Baillie — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:00:02 +0000

After the bomb-shell that was the end of March, life has continued to move on. The weather has improved, dare I say even been pretty incredible for this time of year? Additionally the UK continues to be affected by events which are pretty difficult to predict. First this year was the great freeze, and now we have the great volcano and it’s fallout, mainly the ash, causing travel chaos across Europe. And whilst admittedly I was peeved that I had 2 flights cancelled, lets face it, Belfast ain’t that far away and is reachable using alternative means, spare a thought for people in the global scare of things. Exports from Africa couldn’t get into Europe due to airspace restrictions and subsequently went to waste no doubt affecting people’s finances, then there are other personal stories of people missing weddings, funerals due to the chaos. Who would have thought we would become so reliant on planes. Maybe should have realised the importance of planes with the Berlin Airlift during the Cold war (look it up if you ain’t heard of it). Aside from this, here in Glasgow i’ve been back onto placement and being involved in shooting the odd video with Phil Chan et al here and there…

Ps: the last few scenes of the video some may find disturbing. Please bear in mind this was filmed at approx 2am, and the idea was to poke jest at the Gillette adverts. Additionally also bear in mind the audio on the ident at the end has been edited from elsewhere in the film. Still it provides a good laugh. Til next time.

2010 :: March Update

Jonny Baillie — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 19:00:30 +0000

March saw the end of “finals” and trips to Exeter, Bristol and Belfast ( :: see here :: & :: here :: ), which is where i’m off to tonight for the second time in a month, this time for the easter weekend. Hopefully will catch up with a few friends, not to mention family and probably sneak in a bit of frisbee. This month also saw a few weeks of beard growth…

Aside from that, the tail end of March has been rather ‘dry’ with lectures having started back, and most other students being busy with essays and looking forward to getting home for their weeks of holidays. However in saying that, there has been some entertainment – be it an afternoon jaunt up to Loch Lomond, a night bowling, or a few afternoons playing “Flag Football” (aka touch american football). In fairness when I first turned up, I was pondering the fact that this could be pretty dull as there is so much stoppages in NFL, and lets face it we like it when things are happening in sport. However, I must say i’ve really enjoyed it. Those 15-20 seconds of non-stop adrenaline rush, the tactical discussions, the switches, the improvisation, the blocking and the psychological battles combine to create a cracking spot of physical exercise for a Sunday afternoon. And so tomorrow begins April, anyone any ideas for April Fools?…

http://www.jonnybaillie.co.uk/?p=476