Right. The guys at Farnell have kindly sent me a couple of new '328P chips. I'm about to see if they work.
I'll type as I do it so you can see exactly what I am doing. I haven't even opened the envelope with the chips in.
Right, first things first, on goes my trusty wrist strap. I'll put down the cat (put it on the floor that is, not take it to the vets), and stop rubbing my hair with this baloon, and grab me an Arduino.
Right, that's the Board Detector loaded, and the programming shield plugged in. Now to open the envelope...
The antistatic packaging is good - a bag and a tube...
Slide one chip out of the tube on to my wooden desk, grasp it by both ends (not the legs) and slot this bad boy in.
Plug in Ardy, open the serial monitor...
Atmega chip detector.
Just to test, grab second Ardy, pop the chip, slip that in to the programming shield, and voila - it works.
$^*("£()%