Thanks pb and OFSO.
Yes, I've just been looking at various sites with ex-lease equipment, including that referred to by OFSO.
I think a few hints in that direction are what is required. I shall deliver them with all the tact and subtlety of a thousand bommber raid
ETA I've just subjected the machine to the crucial.com memory scan. (Thanks stuckgear)
It is equipped with a mighty 256mb of RAM. I suppose that shouldn't come as a surprise. It would cost about £60 to bring it up to a respectable 1Gb but given the limitations of the rest of the machine, that would be pretty pointless. There was a Dell leaflet in the newspaper this morning. I shall leave it under the lid of the laptop!