

In the always entertaining gift exchange between heads of state, Queen Elizabeth presented Chinese President Xi Jinping with a hand-tooled edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Xi responded by giving the Queen two of his wife’s albums.

Of course, before she was China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan was a famous folk singer, adored by millions. We have no doubt that the Queen got the better of the trade and will be listening to those records every night before she sleeps and every morning after she wakes up. One Peng Liyuan album is simply not enough.

We have to assume that Xi totally spaced on buying the Queen a gift and had to drop by a Xinhua Bookstore on the way to the airport.

Xi also threw in a 1-meter-long embroidery, a China plate, a wooden sculpture and a book of stamps. Gee whiz, thanks!

Peng also received a pair of Royal Crown Derby candlesticks from the Queen and the couple were gifted a pair of silver-framed photographs of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh. Now, where are they gonna put those?

Final verdict? Does these top Putin’s gift to Xi of a Russian-made smartphone? Yup.

The gift-giving followed a private lunch between the two leaders who also enjoyed a magic carriage ride together to Buckingham Palace.



XJP takes a magic carriage ride to Buckingham with the Queen. Posted by Shanghaiist on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Xi and Peng classing up the joint at last night's state banquet. Posted by Shanghaiist on Tuesday, October 20, 2015

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Later that night, Xi and his better half classed up the palace during a state dinner. Between that time the Chinese president gave a speech Finally, get a taste of the soothing sounds that will be putting the Queen to sleep every night: