Retired #Telecommunications Engineer. #Travels about. Takes #photos. Likes #railways. Likes #history. Likes old #buildings. Likes old #tech. Likes #beer. Doesn’t like Tories.

  • 0 Posts
  • 8 Comments
Joined 8 months ago
Cake day: November 8th, 2023
  • snaprails@feddit.uktoMemes@lemmy.ml•Just sayin
    32·
    6 months ago

    There’s a thing called leasehold whereby you own the building and lease the land usually for 99 years after which it returns to the freeholder. It’s one of the reasons that the US embassy in London moved from Mayfair to Nine Elms. It was the only US embassy in the world that the US government didn’t own, the freehold belongs to the Grosvenor family (i.e. Lord Grosvenor). When the US tried to buy the freehold the Grosvenor family refused but agreed to a 999 year lease in exchange for the return of 12000 acres of Florida that was confiscated from them after the Revolutionary War - yes, they’ve been landowners for a very long time! I think the US made sure to buy the freehold of the new site at Nine Elms (they sold the remainder of the 999 year lease in Mayfair for an undisclosed sum) 😀

  • snaprails@feddit.uktoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What companies have made your blacklist?
    1·
    7 months ago

    They ran the train but lockdown started the next day so my 8 day trip was off. Then they said you couldn’t get a refund on advanced tickets but could rebook later (at extra cost) up to a certain date but who knew when lockdown would end? I wouldn’t have been able to get more leave anyway. Then they said a few days later that advance ticket refund would be given but when I applied they said “Too late, it’s after the date you were due to travel”. Every other company I’d booked with gave refunds even those bookings that were non-refundable. It looks like Caledonian Sleeper’s days might be numbered anyway. Oh dear. How sad. Never mind.