Gordon Brown secured a slender Commons victory tonight when MPs voted to approve highly controversial plans allowing terrorist suspects to be detained without charge for up to 42 days.

[Guardian]

Looking at this and other erosions of our civil liberties over the last ten years, I’ve been thinking — maybe it’s just our turn to be a dictatorship. Most European countries have flirted with it at one time or another, so why not us?

We wouldn’t be a powerful country that makes the world tremble in fear, but one of those crappy little states that everyone laughs at, like Turkmenistan. Look out for the month of April to be named after Gordon Brown’s mother soon…

And judging by the BBC’s pictures at the page linked above, the wait will have been worth it!

I got home, feeling pleased with myself at making such a good purchase. I fling open my wardrobe to put them away. Inside the wardrobe there’s an attractive pair of black jeans… with belt included! Turns out I’d bought a pair a couple of months ago and forgotten about them.

Ho-hum. So it was back to the shop yesterday to return them, while at the same time considering the precariousness of my grip on reality. There’s probably some deep-seated psychological reason for this, but really I don’t want to think about such things right now.

So the memory module is out and I’m back to only-just-enough 256Mb for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless this whole experience has further pushed me towards junking the PC and getting a Mac. Of course, I’m not foolish enough to believe that a Mac would never suffer from a hardware problem, but at least with a Mac I wouldn’t have to worry about all the other crap that comes with a PC.

I’m not going to leap headfirst into getting the Mac, though. I’m going to do some research first. I saw The Mac Mini Guidebook, which has loads of info for PC users wanting to switch to the Mac Mini, in Waterstone’s. There’s also that rather nice Apple Centre in the Albert Dock.

There’s also the issue of money, which I don’t have a whole lot of at the moment. I might have to start selling some of my old stuff. I was in the loft yesterday and was amazed how much junk I’ve accumulated. I may even [insert dramatic music sting here] have to get rid of the Acorn stuff.

This blog entry is a lot longer than I thought it would be. And I’ve just realised I’ve missed Desperate Housewives. Damn.

Andrew Cornes, 42, a graphic designer who normally drives from New Brighton to Liverpool, said: “There were no problems catching the train and it has actually made me think twice about whether this might not be the best way for me to travel to work. The strike could be very good for Merseyrail as it will make people realise there’s a viable alternative to the tunnels, which a lot of people think are a bit of a rip-off.”

Testify! Welcome to the congregation, brother! The above article is from this morning’s Daily Post, who are certainly reporting this better than the Liverpool Echo, whose angle on yesterday’s strike was, unbelievably, “the trains are a bit crap”.

On the good side, the site still looks better than it did during my brief, ill-advised flirtation with Comic Sans MS. Actually the look of the site almost mirrors my life at the moment — not particularly awful, but nothing great either.

But expect things to look different in the near future — on the site anyway. As for my life, well… I should probably get around to sorting that out too.

I ask this because I have, in my weaker moments, tried slouching with my feet on the opposite seat, and I can’t find a position where I can get comfortable — within moments I get a pain in my back.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think Merseyrail should junk that poster featuring a hilariously caricatured cartoon of a scally and replace it with a big warning: “Don’t you care about your posture?! THINK OF YOUR LUMBAR REGION!!!”

And this is why I don’t work in advertising. Or in any other noteworthy career.