fungus:
(how would you burn the program without a programmer :-S )
Exactly my problem 
I have a mk II programmer, but that's one of the ones that no longer works.
My Arduinos have all been re-flashed without bootloaders, so I had to go get a virgin Uno. I can use that as serial programmer now, so that's something. A bit slow... And not robust at all, as the wires go straight into the AVR pins.