Hi Stu,
Cool project by the way and a great blog... I have since found some of those other boards and also thought about the Raspberry PI, but the Auduino boards seem to be further ahead (as a newbie) and this forum looks more active than some of the others. I have to be honest and say the credit is down to your Blog, as that was what got me thinking...
Time to start playing with Arduino I think, I've been looking at one of the MEGA kits as then you get to play with all the other cool stuff too, I suddenly feel like a kid in a sweet shop... 