Has anyone else come across this?

After about as much of a fresh install as i can muster without buying new drives, and after walking through the amd64 alternate install with ease, and after a little 'pre-splash' screen where the orange dots under the (very sexy) new ubuntu logo blink away, I'm left with a vista of purple hues and logo plonked in the middle, with the dots not going anywhere.

I was at this same position last night at 3 in the morning, left it lying overnight, and nothing had changed, so I'm pretty sure its frozen, but when i go in and inspect /var/log/* in the recovery console, no errors, no complaints, no problems.

I'm at my wits end and am just about ready to try anything. If this was on SO I'd be bountying, but if anyone can help you'll just have to cope with my thanks!

Additional Details on my blog and my first attempt at asking for help