I've spoken to Nick and things are looking better. The monochromator, however, has gone Phut again (well, actually it sounded more like a small firecracker) and must return to Germany. We are not best pleased. I have also been shown another room full of old instruments of which i was previously entirely unaware. I must see which of these can be persuaded to work. It includes 4 old PCs, probably with DOS software, which may or may not work and may or may not have now-unobtainable drivers for outdated but probably still perfectly usable luminometers on their hard drives. Their hard drives which may or may not work.