oldbloke's mutterings

Well, found a same-model HDD and the engineers swapped the logic boards, and no joy.
It doesn't spin - in fact if you shove your ear against it you can hear a nasty this-motor-refuses-to-turn buzzing noise.
So that's a load of email, all the soccer data, a few utilities that can be rebuilt/redownloaded but it'll be a pain, and some odds and ends I'd prefer not to have lost, like example Excel stuff etc.
I have a day and a half before I have to send it back to Dell, so I shall continue with the last thing the engineers tried - precussive maintenance, to try to free up whatever's jamming the motor.

My polygons and train set arrived today.
1050 assorted polygons, all with a 58mm edge - well the isoceles and rectangles are different on some edges, but it's all carefully designed to let you build wonderful polyhedra by the addition of just a little Copydex. Top stuff. And a wizzo poster polyhedron poster, too, showing loads and how they fit into various families. I may have to buy Cundy&Rollett now.
The train set rocks, it was under 20 quid (INC post) on www.bid-up.tv - 100 pieces of Brio compatible stuff, loads of track and a train and buildings and signs and...
It really rocks for the price, AND it comes in a top plas box with proper latches and wheels. Excellent.

I've removed the Friends-only restrictions on my stuff. This place seems civilised!