Beauty versus the beast

Suspend belief for the next two minutes and imagine that you own a Ferrari Testarossa—a gleaming red marvel; the marriage of art and engineering. You and this breathtaking morsel of mechanistic beauty have been together for so long that you can't remember a time when you were not as one. You know each other intimately. Or do you?

One Sunday afternoon as you snake along the chicanes of a high mountainous road, the Testarossa emits a sickening bang. You pull the wheezing ball of exhaust fumes to the side of the road and pop the bonnet. When you lift the shining scarlet cranium and peer into the smoking beast, there is not a scintilla of recognition. You realise that you're looking at an entirely foreign being.

Now imagine that being …