(Image: AP/Andrew Harnik)

Sub standards We have, at last, entered a new golden era for the spaceships of the ocean. The trilateral agreement between Australia, the US and the UK, will replace the utterly botched French submarine deal with nuclear-powered models. It was forward-sizzled like hell in the Nine papers last night, with breathless reports of cabinet ministers rushing back to Canberra ahead of a “major announcement” coming out of the US. Anyone worried that this, combined with an increasingly fighty posture from North Korea, may bode very, very ill could perhaps reassure themselves by looking at The New York Times‘ website, where all of this yet to rate a mention.

This impression — that this is a bigger deal for Australia that it is for the US or the UK — was really driven home during the press conference announcing the deal, attended by the leaders of all three countries, US president Joe Biden appeared to forget Scott Morrison’s name: “Thank you, Boris. And I want to thank that fella down under. Thank you, pal. Appreciate it, Mr Prime Minister”.

This is the second time the PM has encountered a world leader unable to recall his name without aid — remember German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s palm cards? Still, at least Biden didn’t just guess, like Sean Spicer did with his predecessor, President Malcolm Trumble.

Separately, is AUKUS deliberately evoking Orcus, the Roman god of the underworld who punished “broken oaths”? Let’s face it, Boris Johnson loves all that nonsense.

Darling Nicki The future is an extremely strange place to live. We thought we’d have teleporters or hoverboards or replicants. Instead, the defining modern condition is knowing that former tennis pro Pat Cash wants you to eat some horse paste and rap superstar Nicki Minaj is a vaccine sceptic because of her cousin’s friend’s balls.

Sorry, if you’ve not been following this as closely as we in the bunker have, that might sound a bit weird. On Tuesday, Minaj told her Twitter followers to make sure they weren’t “bullied” into getting vaccinated on account of her “cousin in Trinidad” who “won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding”. And this alone, while pretty funny, might not have caught Tips and Murmurs’ attention, but this is 2021 so of course it pulled in world leaders and high-profile media figures.

British PM Boris Johnson was forced to concede he wasn’t “as familiar with the works of Nicki Minaj as I probably should be”, while irresponsible vaccine sceptic and clown car in human form Tucker Carlson continued his commitment to being incapable of embarrassment by telling the man in question “we want to hear your story“. Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister — clearly annoyed that this had been added to his list of tasks — finally had to hold a press conference to clarify that, as far as he knew, there had been no vax-related testicle swellings reported.

We dimly suspect this guy has used the COVID-19 vaccine as cover for the consequences of a relationship-ending indiscretion. If so, the international attention directed at the state of his testicles may be the greatest example of the Streisand effect in human history.

A la Modi Australia continues to turn a blind eye to the erosion of human rights and religious persecution in India. Following Australia’s free trade agreement, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has tapped Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give the keynote address at their inaugural Sydney Dialogue event in November.

This would be galling enough, but the oversight is particularly strange given the important work ASPI has done on the persecution of Uyghurs in China.