Andy Zaltzman

Who were you picturing asking, how's your wall?

It could go either way, couldn't it?

Yeah.

It could go either way.

And obviously sharing tips on hair care and stifling media opposition.

But the Taiwan issue was something that was rather...

skirted around, President Xi told Trump that disagreement over Taiwan could be, and I quote, like telling your auntie and your uncle to toddle off and fetch the commemorative brass porcupine that you've just whacked off the top of a mountain with a golf club.

I might have over-translated that.

I think, more simply, it could send relations down a dangerous path.

And the American position on Taiwan has been described as strategic ambiguity.

Essentially, America is a little bit hamstrung at the moment in terms of what

possible sort of threats or leverage it can use against China given that they are in a current state America of struggling to impose martial will on opponents with a barely functioning military so getting on the wrong side of the world's biggest military power seems like something worth avoiding especially now China no longer make all their soldiers out of terracotta which makes them so much more flexible.

The world being overwhelmed by technological-based panic news now.

Alice, you always keep us up to date on the latest progress of technology and rightly disposing humans to the dustbin of history where we so conclusively belong.

And, well, a couple of stories this week, including Atlanta in the USA being, well, overwhelmed by several driverless, let's talk it up, thousands of driverless cars rampaging around a terrified neighborhood as the future came to America last week.

Incidentally, cul-de-sac is a French term for vasectomy, I believe.

In another tech panic, Alice, Anthropic have sparked more mayhem around the world.

Well, in the world of essentially gambling on technology in a way that really we should have grown out of by now.

So are you essentially saying that basing the entire global economy on essentially pretend money and even more pretend stuff is not necessarily long-term going to work for us?

Well, if you want more science and tech updates, do catch Alice's Bugle Sister podcast, The Gargle.