Couchtripper

the hassles with the site over the couple of weeks are caused by the server company's SQL server failing. It's that which keeps all the databases which this site is based on, so, when it goes, the site (and about 200 others) go with it.

I spoke to the server tech and he said 'oh yeah, there's a memory leak on that server'. Well fix it then!

"Memory leak"? Didn't sound right to me, I mean it ain't a friggin' bucket.
My mate google gave me this,

https://sqlblog.com/blogs/jonathan_kehay ... usage.aspx

very good it is too ...

that is a good article for sure - I'll maybe send it on to them if the trouble starts again