Oddest requests from Britons to embassies

LONDON: Does the British high commission in New Delhi sell “veg sausages”? That was the question from a Briton on holiday in India: he called up the embassy to know when the counter opens so that he could buy the “delicacy”.

This was among the 10 most unusual inquiries received by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office , which fielded 330,000 calls this year from British people abroad who needed help.

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “I can regretfully confirm that the Foreign Office isn’t able to offer advice on vampires or rogue stray cats. And our capacity to deploy veggie sausages remains sadly lacking.”

Here are some of the oddest inquiries: A man asking diplomats speak to a massage parlour in Bangkok on his behalf, as he fell asleep during a massage and felt he shouldn’t have to pay for it.

A man asking where he should send a piece of wood he found on a beach that he thought may be from a British warship from the 1700s. A person in Italy asking the embassy to help arrange his wedding and get the couple tickets to see the Pope.

A caller in the Canary Islands requesting that diplomats persuade his hotel to give him a different room as a stray cat had “broken into” the existing one and urinated on his bed. A man inquiring if there were vampires in Poland because a woman he met online asked what blood type he was before their first date. And a man in Kuwait asking if any of the diplomatic staff wanted to adopt his puppies.