In the words of one panellist, visiting American physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss, the American president was worse than a 4-year-old.

Worse than a 4-year-old at what, you ask?

Well, everything.

"He doesn't have any views. He just says whatever the heck he is thinking about," ventured an exasperated Krauss.

"To suggest there's some reason behind anything he says is to assume so much more to the man ??? there was a great article in The New York Times saying it was an insult to 4-year-olds when people compared Trump to 4-year-olds and it wasn't just funny because 4-year-olds are curious. They're playful. They experiment. They want to know more about the world. He doesn't do any of that."

Krauss' observations came at the tail end of a serious point about Trumpism, namely its hostility to "inconvenient science".

"It's a real problem that you're seeing not only reduction in support of research, but a real problem relates to what was talked about earlier - immigration," he said.

"You're seeing governments wanting to keep the best young people in the world out of their country. And [for] the US, its primacy in science has depended that it always opened its doors to the best young people in the world who came to study at its universities - some of whom went back and that helps the world anyway, but many of whom created Google or whatever else in the country. So you are seeing the Third World and China realising what was well known before in the First World, which is to gain economic prominence, especially in the 21st century, to become an economic powerhouse, you want to be a technological powerhouse. And you're seeing fundamental devotion of money to research in South Korea and China. And I have every expectation that we're doing as much as we can to quickly move to the back of the pack."

For American author Paul Beatty, contemplating the Trump-Putin relationship, the US president evoked firstly some helpless laughter, and then this: "Having a plan, not having a plan - it doesn't make you any less dangerous. Trump reminds me - I saw this two weeks ago in the paper, that somewhere in London they found this unexploded ordinance from World War II from the Blitz in the cellar. And Trump is like that bomb, that unexploded bomb in the basement. It's dangerous. It's historic. It conjures up all kinds of things. You don't know how to detonate it necessarily. That's where I'm at. And it is sort of amusing."

Russian writer Mikhail Zygar had some words of comfort - he was of the view that despite much evidence to the contrary, whatever Trump is, he is not Putin's puppet

"I have never thought that there are any real connections between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. I really do not believe in any corruption schemes ??? I don't want to say anything about Trump's idea about a witch-hunt but most of those reports seem to me to be a bit inaccurate.

"But speaking about how Mr Putin and Mr Trump suit each other, yes. They suit each other a lot. For many years Vladimir Putin was looking for a partner he could deal with. He hates when he's being lectured about human rights, he does not believe in all those liberal values, blah, blah. He always thinks he is cheated. He has been cheated by Barack Obama, by Angela Merkel. So he has always wanted to have a partner like Berlusconi."

To which Krauss added: "He's found one."

But it fell to Australian journalist and author Niki Savva to drive home the true extent to which the spectre of Trump hangs over us here.

"We wake to to Trump in the morning. We go to sleep with him at night, God forbid," Savva said.

"Atrocity after atrocity is reported here so that he has saturation coverage. He takes all the oxygen. It is very hard for politicians here to try to get a message out above him.

"The other thing from Trump is that he has the ability to reset the agenda in Australia as well, because if he was to do something even more outrageous than he's already done, something that is really terrifying, enough to frighten the pants off Australians as well, then I think that will change the political dynamics in Australia as well. So we worry about it - not just in a global perspective, and there is a lot to worry about - but we also worry about it in our own little place here."

In other words: to all intents and purposes we're in bed with the man - and at some point he might properly scare the pants off us. Just in case you're wondering why you're having trouble sleeping at night.