OK, thanks for all the replies.  I guess I'm not far from the point of actually buying the damn BTCs.

"A seed is initially generated and you can restore your wallet from that. You do not have to worry about your HDD failing."

OK, that sounds good, but I don't really understand it.

Given that there's a distinct possibility a HDD could fail, how would BTCs be retrieved from it?  Can I make a written note of my public and private BTC addresses?

Also, can I store the BTCs on an external HDD?  Obviously, that'd be preferable to putting them on a netbook which I'd then have to maintain; given that one has to go online constantly to update software on the netbook, that's not necessarily good for protecting the BTCs.

I am of course assuming the worst case scenarios here; that people are watching my purchase of BTCs and checking my vulnerabilities.

Oh, so Electrum is potentially vulnerable too?  That's just what I wanted to hear!

****!, the only sure way is a paper wallet isn't it?