Norway's tourist board has responded to Donald Trump's description of the country as a 'shithouse country' by launching a tongue-in-cheek campaign celebrating its most scenic public toilets.
Days after the US president expressed fury over failing to win the Nobel peace prize at a rally on Sunday, Visit Norway asked on its website: "Are these the world's best shit houses?"
"Norway makes shit houses great again!" the agency wrote above pictures of the country's most striking public conveniences, adding: "These toilets are worth a visit, both when you really have to go – and when you don't."
Trump's outburst
Trump delivered his tirade at a rally in Michigan days before the US midterm elections. "Frankly, Norway sucks. Norway has become a shithouse country, actually," he declared, using a term he has previously applied to Haiti, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.
He added that he would welcome migrants from some countries but not Norway, "because I didn't get the Nobel Prize". Earlier this month, Trump denounced the decision to award the prize to Navi Pillay, a former international criminal court judge.
"This is an indelible stain on the country of Norway and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision," he said. "I never heard of this person. The Nobel peace prize has been forever discredited … And we will not forget, Norway."
Architectural attractions
Along 18 designated scenic routes around Norway, Visit Norway said, leading architects had been tasked with transforming the humble wayside privy into an attraction in its own right. Several have since won international architecture awards.
The agency pictured a series of designer public conveniences, many of them architecturally striking and all offering views overlooking fjords, beside rushing rivers and foaming waterfalls, and at scenic viewpoints.
They "invite you to take your time and enjoy the scenery, even if you don't have any business to take care of", Visit Norway said, highlighting the restrooms at the Stegastein viewpoint in the Sognefjord region of western Norway.
This particular comfort station, the tourist board noted, had been ranked among the 10 best public toilets in the world by DesignCurial, the online architecture, design and interiors magazine.
Response and reaction
Jens Kjeldsen, a rhetoric professor at the University of Bergen, said that under the circumstances, Visit Norway's response was well judged. "It's like the bully in kindergarten," he told NRK public television. "If you get too serious, the bully wins."
Evgenia Egorova, a senior consultant at Visit Norway, told the broadcaster the response to its social media fightback had been immense. "The world needs a little laugh," she said. "We thought: let's meet them with kindness, and a little humour."
Visit Norway said it had more stylish loos in the pipeline, including a forest-inspired latrine using dried wood from more than 60 trees. "Get ready for the pit stop of your life," it urged, before signing off with: "Toodeloo!"
The Nobel peace prize is famously not awarded by the nation or even the government of Norway, but by the Nobel prize committee, which operates independently – something Trump "knows very well", the foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, said. "We have reminded him of that, in case anyone is wondering."
