For the last while I've had real problems watching any kind of streaming video from sites like youtube, guba etc and had tried all sorts to try and sort it to no avail... but it turns out what I needed to do was change the server-cache that I connect through and now things are working at top speed. Brilliant.
To do this (using firefox2) first of all check this list
https://homepage.ntlworld.com/robin.d.h. ... e.html#ntl
and select a server-cache (I'm guessing picking one that's nearer to you is better) that doesn't have the yellow 'ink' comment. Then click on tools/options/advanced then select the 'network' tab and click on 'settings' then select 'manual proxy configuration' and enter the address you've picked from the list into the 'https config' line. Make sure you've set the ports to 8080 and you should be set.
I'm delighted to have found this out as it was really ruining my enjoyment.
And here's another great feature of this that I've just noticed, my upload speed to Sendspace is now full speed (up to 90k/s) rather than the maximum of 50k/s I was getting before, meaning that the tv shows will be appearing a good bit quicker (20 minutes at least) than before... let's just hope this continues working.