The new pod arriveth, and lo, she is shiny:

None too soon, either. The old pod, in a curiously coincidental fit of pique, decided that the click-wheel was not essential to operations and stopped responding. Menu and Play/Pause worked fine, but scrolling was out of the question. Shuffle was set to off just before this happened, so if I wanted to listen to music, I had to do it alphabetically by artist and then song-title. Did you know I have three copies of "Take On Me" by A-ha? Neither did I.

And now, if you'll forgive me, it's been one HELL of a day at the baby mines, and I am going to burrow into the couch and catch up on Torchwood.