British homes are blessed with many inventions, most of which are enshrined in building regulations. Which is why it is nigh impossible to get rid of them. The spring-loaded door is the brainchild of some genius concerned with fire hazard. The idea is simple: put a spring in the door, so that it closes by itself, thus isolating rooms from each other and slowing down fire’s progress. As a consequence, people use doorstops to keep some doors open all the time. These are a worse fire hazard than doors without springs. But the trouble is with the doors that are kept shut most of the time. Many people do not bother closing them gently; instead, they let them slam behind them by themselves. Bang! Now imagine living in an apartment surrounded by an identical two-floor apartment from one side, two one-floor apartments from the other, and one two-floor apartment from below. By the way, the house was built by a developer in the first half of the Nineteenth Century, and it is thus not the model of sturdiness. In short, doors bang from all sides at all times, as there are always more callous neighbors around than those of the right kind. But the building regulations are here to stay, and banging doors are a permanent feature of British homes. And this is just one of the many inventions with which they are blessed.