Arianne Shahvisi

As a teenager,​ I couldn’t find anyone to play chess with me, so I pored over a small yellow copy of Chess Made Easy and set up games against myself. Mine is the 26th edition of Cecil Purdy and Gary Koshnitsky’s primer, first published in 1942. Returning to it recently, I noticed a brief section towards the end on ‘Women in Chess’. It is often the case, the text...

Erwin Schrödinger​ is best known for his cat, suspended in a state of being both dead and alive. Less well known is ‘Schrödinger’s paradox’, which describes the apparent contradiction between life and the second law of thermodynamics. The second law rules that the entropy – usually glossed as the measure of disorder – of an isolated system...

Cladding and insulation are only the most notorious problems faced by those living in new developments. Lax building regulations mean that careless gaps between cladding and internal walls function as chimneys through which blazes can surge. Timber balconies, arranged like kindling over the cladding (and often used for risky activities like smoking and barbecues) are also implicated. Flammability isn’t the only concern. A survey conducted by Shelter in 2017 found that half of newbuilds have serious and costly structural defects. Some have shoddy mortar that crumbles within months, leaving bricks wobbling like loose teeth. A recent audit concluded that three-quarters of developments shouldn’t have been given planning permission. It will surprise nobody to learn that the Conservative Party receives millions in donations from property developers. The government is neither compelling developers to pay for necessary improvements to buildings, nor is it prepared to do so itself. Many leaseholders, particularly those in shared ownership flats, won’t be able to cover the projected costs. There is a very real risk of bankruptcy.