Car started alright, but went through the usual 'let's reconfigure the BSI for fun' routine. On the way home, three ominous bongs were heard, accompanied by a 'Battery Charge Low', message and warning light. Went back out to check it over in the mini blizzard and it wouldn't start. Took the battery off & put it on charge, then checked out all the wiring, finding nothing amiss. Took another butchers at the battery, trying to find a date code. Noticed instead a list of vehicles it fits - no Pugs, but among the others I found some Cisterns - ZX, BX and XM
As it looked like the battery's significantly older than the car, I resolved to replace it forthwith. 20 mins phoning round local suppliers and I settled for a 72Ah / 3 year gaurantee jobby at about £80
Put orignal battery back on, got it going, got new battery, which I had to fit in the street cos it wasn't going to start a 2nd time. Never mind, lets get home and out of the snow...... three ominous bongs were heard, accompanied by a 'Battery Charge Low', message and warning light. 
Got home & popped the bonnet, distinct electrical burning smell, did some more investigating and found alternator output swinging between 13 & 14.5V, and eventually some smoke from the rectifer area.
Tracked down a replacement 5 miles away for £150
, but how to get there? Disconnected the cables from the alternator & linked them together, fetched alternator. A sane individual would call it a day at this point, (3:00 pm and still snowing), but since I need it for work on Monday and its booked in for its MOT, near where I work, on Tuesday, I set about removing the old alternator, which is a right sod in a snow storm, but I got it off and called it a night.
One of our dogs woke me at 6:30 this morning. Still snowing. So I had another hot lemon & went back to bed till 8:00......
Set to at 9:00, snow had finally stopped and to my surpise, I had the new alternator on and power steering pump refitted in just over an hour. (Thank you, santa for the top-notch set of MAG ratchet spanners, without which this would have been loads more grief)
Final hurdle was refitting the aux drive belt, (which to my surprise can be done without removing the wheel arch liner and so on, if you sacrifice a coathanger or two).
11:30 and Nitric's purring quietly, still mostly under 6 inches of snow.
It's amazing how quickly the starter spins it over now.
.
And also - name calling doesn't help get it started 
