OK, so i can answer a question or two of my own.
I've got Maemo Recorder now - and it works. That handles sound recording.
I've got Password Safe - for recording passwords, and other secret stuff.
I've got FBReader, and it seems to rock.

I've got mplayer, but am having problems with it.
I downloaded another browser - but there are problems with it.

I'm having problems with some repository - can't do updates. Will have to track it down. Until then, can't download abiword or Python, probably etc.

Rome wasn't built in a day or two.