Norway Patiently Explains Government Does Not Hand-Carve Alfred Nobel’s Gold Medals

In an extraordinary emergency press briefing punctuated by heavy Nordic sighing, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs deployed a set of primary-colored wooden blocks today to demonstrate to Donald Trump that sovereign governments do not, in fact, control a private committee of retired bibliophiles. The diplomatic intervention followed an unprompted barrage from Trump, who reportedly branded the Scandinavian nation an ungrateful den of frozen ingrates for failing to award him the coveted medallion, an honor he insists belongs rightfully to whoever screams loudest about trade deficits. 'We have repeatedly explained that Alfred Nobel was an eccentric nineteenth-century dynamite enthusiast rather than a bureaucrat in our trade department,' noted Chief Undersecretary Lars Helvig, rubbing his temples while reviewing a proposed trade of two sovereign wealth funds for four minutes of total silence. 'We even offered to mint him a custom commemorative disc pressed from recycled sardine tins, but his envoys maintain that true peace requires a three-pound gold trinket and a handwritten apology from every puffin in Oslo.'