September 2022
Not long to go until our baby arrives. We’ve prepped the house, had double glazing installed, and bought a car that is more suitable for carrying a child around. The Baby Box from the Government arrived. We are celebrating a year in the flat, and reflecting on all that has changed and is about to change.
Edinburgh was a stange place for much of the middle of the month. With the death of The Queen the streets were busy - the Scottish version of “the queue” looped through The Meadows near our house.
I took off on a cycling trip doing the C2C from Whitehaven to Tynemouth over the course of four days. I added some photos and details to my journal.
![The Start of the C2C](https://jamiemchale-assets.imgix.net/collections/2022-09-september/20220915-A7C02626.jpg?w=275)
![The Lake District](https://jamiemchale-assets.imgix.net/collections/2022-09-september/20220915-A7C02702.jpg?w=275)
![At the end of the C2C](https://jamiemchale-assets.imgix.net/collections/2022-09-september/20220918-A7C03287.jpg?w=275)
EdinburghJS resumed after the summer break with a talk by Rory Gianni on the Principles of D3. We had a great turnout, and I’m looking forward to growing the meetup with Esteban and Allan into the new year.
![Rory presenting at EdinburghJS](https://jamiemchale-assets.imgix.net/collections/2022-09-september/20220922-A7C03309.jpg?w=275)
Jac was kind to invite us over to celebrate Rosh Hashanah with her and some friends. We ate sweet food, round bread, and listened to a valiant effort of some shofar blowing.
Reading
This month I read a fair amount of Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism and:
- The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. This continues from the authors previous work Why Nations Fail and discusses how we need both a strong state and civil society to develop economically, prevent tyranny and extractive institutions. Recommended.
- Liberalism and Its Discontents, Francis Fukuyama. I thought I might read through Fukuyama’s books, as I read The End of History at least a decade and a half ago, but want to revisit it to understand how the arguments have held up. This book was a general tour of liberal thought in our current political climate: neoliberals vs the woke.
That’s all for this month. I’ll be spending the next few weeks in a state of nervous excitement, waiting for the baby to arrive. 👋