I’ve noticed something.

It’s not this, but I’ll just start by saying, my children are inconvenient. Because of my children I often leave the house at dawn - to avoid them. Lately I’ve been running laps of the big field close to my house. It’s big, it’s about twelve hundred metres all the way round, and it’s a pretty overgrown sort of nature-reserve-type field, which is nice - but I would still be running a less repetitive route if it weren't for reasons that I won’t explain because I don’t want to prejudice the case I might bring against my employer. Essentially it’s because of our CEO's slightly pushy attitude to working in the office, which by my speculative analysis is born out of his own inability to get anything done when he's working from home.

I'm joking, about the pushy attitude to working in the office. We are better together. For me, Kevin's Corner is the highlight of my role in data strategy and it's taking a while to get used to it, but I think it’s nice sharing it face-to-face.

I'm not joking about my analysis of Luke's productivity.

None of this is the thing I've noticed. One morning this week, for many reasons, and fundamentally, because of my wife and Luke, I left the house slightly before sunrise. So it was darker than usual. It was dark enough to get that thing where you get a sudden serious fright because as you’re running through the trees, suddenly out of the corner of your eye you realise someone’s standing, hiding there next to the path, in the dark, you turn your head and realise it’s just a tree, and you run on, heart thumping a bit harder, while you tell yourself that fear can be controlled. Everyone knows about the idea that our evolutionary ancestors were safer when they saw a predator among the leaves even if it wasn’t there - and I was researching it this morning, this is called Pareidolia. It is also good for getting yourself cared for as a baby. If you tend to see a face, and so smile at it, even when it’s not there, you’re more likely to succeed in capitalising on your cuteness, and get yourself fed. Incidentally, I've always found my children manipulative.

None of this is the thing I’ve noticed. This time of year there are a lot of slugs and snails about, and I try to avoid stepping on them. I was researching this this morning, and slugs and snails are mollusks, like octopuses. Think about treading on an octopus.

In the grey light just before dawn I saw a big slug on the path, and avoided it. Each time I lapped the field, it got a bit lighter as the sun rose, I spotted the slug, and made a point of trying not to step on it. On my third lap I thought I’d seen it too late, and squashed it, but on the fourth lap I saw that it was okay. On the fifth lap it was light enough for me to see it was a stick.

None of this is the thing I’ve noticed, this is the thing: when you encounter a dog walker, the earlier it is in the morning, the more likely it is that the dog will be dangerous. Fact. I’ve been studying this. If you meet a dog walker at say 5:20 - I don’t know the names for dogs - but the dog will be big and muscley, with a big neck and teeth that stick out of its short face so that it can get hold of a runner that might be threatening its owner and tear chunks out. If you meet a dog shortly before lunchtime on your day off, it will be fluffy and small enough to fit in either a tote bag or maybe even a big purse when it's open. Sometimes at sunrise, I meet a blind Alsasian. Blind, doesn’t sound dangerous, but actually, there is nothing more dangerous than surprising a blind Alsasian.

I’ve thought about this quite a lot, like what’s causing this. Here are some possible reasons I’ve come up with:

  1. People who own dangerous dogs take them out early to minimise the chance that they’ll attack something because you’re less likely to meet other people and their dogs at dawn
  2. People who own dangerous dogs have issues that mean they can’t sleep so they get up early and take their dog for a walk
  3. People who have to go to work early and who own a dog tend to keep a dangerous one because their job normally involves frightening people
  4. People who own dangerous dogs want to keep them really aggressive so they wake them up early and take them out in the dark to frighten them
  5. Running in the dark can be frightening so you’re more likely to perceive a dog to be dangerous at dawn

So there you go, I’m looking into it, and I’ll share my report as soon as it’s available. In the meantime

Have a good weekend