still no joy!!!!
i dug up my old lappy out of the moldy green boxes in the attic along with the old olitec modem, got it going and it actually booted up. and amazing that through that modem and the attglobal dial up, i still couldn't access pprune. i could get any thing else i tried, even the volvo web page of all things. tried to sneak in through google, but no success.
i wonder if toucan did do something when they took access to the line. but when i call them they say they can access it on their computer whilst i am talking to them.
this will be a good story for the computer magazines when i ever get it sorted out.
must take my lappies to another house and use someone else's phone line and then see what happens! i am getting to feel a bit paranoid about the whole thing.