First, I found my Firestarter firewall automatically turned itself on every
time I rebooted and blocked net and internet access. I tried uninstalling it
and also KMy Firewall but it must have left behind iptables settings which
still blocked connectivity. So Firestarter is back and if I have to manually
rejig it every time I boot up it won't be the end of the world. I'm rather
glad to keep it as I'd like to have a bit of protection when I travel. I'll
investigate further when I have a few other things sorted out.