Pasta and paranoia

摘要

"I asked them if they could do human bodies, but they said they couldn't," said Inga, referring to the floor of clear resin in which the paper-thin skulls of stoats alternated with glossy red chilli peppers. "I didn't have anyone in mind," she added hastily, "I was just curious." Inga knows her job. She guides her small flock of journalists around 110 displays of unusual flooring by making quick, darting runs and occasionally nipping the ankles of the hindmost. We inspect fine leather floors for bathrooms, fun floors for trendy bars that change colour when you step on them, floors of patinated copper, brushed chromium ... floors made from tiles of fossilised trees that go for EUD10,000 a square metre (wholesale). They are amazingly beautiful. So beautiful that we almost forgive Inga for trying to make us spend all three days of the press trip to Saie Due in Bologna looking at them. Starting at 7.30 in the morning.