A question of perception.

Above, the essayist and memoirist Anaïs Nin’s famous quote.
When I moved from the West Riding of Yorkshire to Cornwall, I did so confident that I knew the area where I was going to live from then on. Not only that, I had two friends within a short walking distance.
I knew about those plus points and minus points every location has. For instance, I knew the B3306 road from St. Ives to St. Just is the most unsuitable road on the planet for cycling. That anyone with at least two functioning brain cells would realise this. There are regrettably many Lycra clad individuals whose brains have ceased completely to work on bicycles on this road. These idiots pose a danger to themselves and new business opportunities to the local undertaker.
There are however some things I did not fully appreciate about the area. One of these is Fog. We get a lot of Fog around where I live. Another is wind. We get a lot of wind around where I live. I did know it was a windy area. The absence of trees betokened this. But that little facet of life did not engage with the Rogers brain. Until that brain was resident here.
Then there are the dogs.
Now I am not a dog owner. Nor do I have a phobia about dogs. Which is just as well because sometimes it seems like every other human being within a 10 mile radius owns a dog!
Which gets us finally to the point of today’s piece!
This morning, the latest edition of the parish magazine dropped through my letterbox. This was one issue I was looking forward to because it lists the many events that are taking place throughout the festive season.
NB: If there are readers who think your Editor must be living in a desolate place now the tourists are long gone and winter is upon him, do not worry! The village comes alive at this time of year!
I shall now reprint one sentence from an article written by a local person edited to prevent the writer from being identified:
“The boy dog, [name deleted] being partially sighted, the girl [name deleted] an ardent rabbit chaser.”
FACT: Dogs are not people. They may have characters but they cannot act or feel like humans. The anthropomorphic attitude displayed by this person illustrates a major problem: any positive co-relation between the way people perceive the world and those in it with reality is purely coincidental.
This affliction of self delusion is unfortunately very common unlike the extremely rare and wrongly named, “Common Sense”.
It leads to all sorts of problems. Like the believe that the UK’s base load electrical generating capacity found it it’s coal fired power stations can be replaced by covering the North Sea with wind turbines. Or the equally delusional belief that all the UK needs to do to leave the European Union is to repeal the European Communities Act, 1972!