USB mouse and keyboard lock solved.

[Matthew Gibbins]

 Hi,
  folks It's cured.
  I ran 'dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86' to redo the XF86Config-4 file
  and changed the keyboard definition to pc104.
  Strangely the keyboard only has 101 keys, and has been working fine
  up until recently. Yet changing the definition to pc104 seems to have
  done the trick.
  
-- 
 I'm not advocating that anyone take up emacs.
 Not even me: at my age, I'd be more likely to try bungee-jumping. 
 It's easier, and has less risk of causing permanent brain damage.
**  A posting on ZDNet forum