From a distance, it is easy to dismiss it as a huge marketing con; a place in which rich fools gladly part with their money in return for the illusion of superior quality.
Defined as acceptable by bureaucrats who set them, such targets propagate the illusion of meeting quality standards despite seriously endangering their citizens, all of whom share an equally poor access to health care.
Or at least project an illusion of those qualities.
"Northampton Saints' record over the last few seasons speaks for itself and I'm under no illusions of the quality of squad I'm going in to and the challenge that presents," he said.
Studio top brass love their box-office statistics because they create the illusion of success and handily side-step any sort of quality analysis.
Harry Feiner, the set designer, created a set out of veils and curtains that gave, sometimes, the illusion of substance while underlining the ephemeral quality of the transformations achieved by the Fairy Godmother, or Bonne Fée.
The illusion of "improvement" is actually dangerous because it gives a false sense of quality for the reconstruction.
By the time my guided tour through a selection of the 100,000-plus items presently archived at The Wende Museum concluded, some of my grimmest illusions about the quality of human life "behind the iron curtain" were shattered or, at least, expanded.
It is wide enough to go down seamlessly in many kitchens and has a monolithic, slablike quality that gives the illusion of larger space.
I see the mullahs fighting to prevent a Reformation.Russell BergMelrose, MassachusettsThe wrong SOXSIR – What we have learned from Sarbanes-Oxley, five years after it was signed into law, is that the act created the illusion that the quality of corporate governance could be improved by more regulation and measured by analysing financial statements ("Five years under the thumb", July 28th).
