Turns out it probably wasn't the www, but at my end.............
I had major computer problems last Thursday, including a blue screen of death scenario. Once I managed to get back to the C:\ prompt running
chkdsk /r revived the computer, but be aware such such a procedure can take a couple of hours.
Problems didn't stop there, however as Norton AntiVirus then threw a fit which ended up in its having to be reloaded/reinstalled from their website, - a simple process surely?, - but no!
After 4 hours I gave up, and as a temporary measure, installed AVG (even although it doesn't have the inbuilt firewall that Norton has). And it looks like AVG is set up as default to run in the background which is why InterNet Explorer was having problems getting a slice of the computer's time to access the www ............... it was the near constant whirring of the HD that gave it away.
And yes, I did manage to reload/reinstall Norton, but eventually had to resort to using a utility downloaded from their site to remove any trace of the program prior to reloading/reinstallation, - the Windows "Add/Remove programmes" wasn't working; but I'm told that I should have been looking not only for "Norton" but also "Symantec" in the programme list !
David