Remember the guy who claimed to have solved my problem, using a technique that I'd tried and found not to work? Well, my supervisor and I are now basically convinced that he's made exactly the same mistake as I did. Hurrah!
Sucks to be him, or at least it will when I tell him.
This means that there is actually a point in my carrying on with my current (more complicated) approach. And my supervisor reckons that I can put the proof of his wrongness in my thesis! Yay for extra pages.
Right, I'm going to go home, buy beer, eat the remains of the sag dahl, and watch Ran.