Gifting imbalance – we’ve all been there. You buy someone a thoughtfully chosen present; they give you novelty socks or a Jamie Oliver Flavour Shaker. So it was last week, when China’s president Xi Jinping visited the UK. The Queen, gawd love ’er, gave him a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets in a leather and gilt box. In return, Her Maj received two albums of his wife Madame Peng’s folk music. Er, thanks? Here’s some of the strangest diplomatic gifts in history…
It’s just not a cricket
What do you buy the monarch who has everything? President Pompidou of France thought he’d cracked it in 1972, when he presented the Queen with a metal wine cooler shaped like a giant grasshopper. It was even dual purpose: rotate its wings and it turned into a drinks table. Handy, if random.
Don’t cry for meat, Argentina
George W Bush’s gift haul as US president included an iPod from Bono, a vocabulary-building game from the sultan of Brunei (let’s face it, Dubya needed one), a Komodo dragon from Indonesia and an electric harp from the president of Vietnam. All were topped by the 300lb of raw lamb from the president of Argentina in 2003. Kebabs again tonight, Laura dear?
Wicker manhood
There’s no accounting for taste. On the South Pacific island of Tanna, Prince Philip is an actual deity, worshipped by the Kastom people. Five years ago, they made the Duke of Edinburgh his very own straw penis sheath. Which was nice.
Man from Del Monte says no
Buckingham Palace must have grown sick of pineapple in 1947, when the future Queen was sent 500 cases of the tinned fruit as a wedding present from Australia. Still, it beats the Earl and Countess of Wessex, who last year were handed two tins of tuna by a well-wisher in Canada. What is this, a harvest festival?
Giving him the hump
In gratitude for France’s assistance in driving out Islamist militants in 2013, Mali’s government gave president François Hollande a camel. Deciding there was no room for it at the Elysée, he left it in the care of a Timbuktu family - only to discover they had cooked it in a tagine. The embarrassed Malians promptly gave Hollande “a bigger and better-looking camel”.
Ride of her life
The Queen is often given animals, including a pair of sloths from Brazil and a male elephant named Jumbo from the Cameroon government. However, her most bizarre bestial gift was horse sperm. During the Queen’s 2011 visit to Ireland, thoroughbred owner Cristina Patino offered to let a royal mare visit her stallion Big Bad Bob (who usually commands a £5,000 stud fee) for free. Charming.
