Well I seemed to have rectified my blogger issues by installing IE8, but then made the mistake of clicking the 'try the new interface' link on the blogger dashboard - it said 'your browser is not supported' and that was it!
So I've installed Google Chrome and am using that for blogging now. I've also set the comments to appear in a pop-up as per the mighty Shelldrake's suggestion - hope it works!
Just about to start writing my batrep from last Friday, so, with a bit of luck, that should appear soon!