[stephenwilks]

Yes! A USB to Micro USB lead does the trick, and can be bought here at less than Amazon.com prices. Thanks all for your input! :-)

Funnily enough, I found another lead exhibiting this problem today, after I emptied the glovebox of my Reliant Robin ;-) (see my avatar) prior to having it washed. It's an FM transmitter that works off the cigar-lighter ;-), and it has a spring-coiled lead with a stereo jack that you can plug into the likes of say an MP3 player. You can plug in your mobile sound device and it will transmit to an FM frequency on your car hi-fi ;-) The insulation on the lead between the jack and the spring-coil is cracking. It's hardly used, since I have found it much easier to just use an SD card-player on the hi-fi. And it's always been kept in the dark. So again, I suspect it's the case that some (perhaps) Chinese factories have been known to use slightly inferior insulation plastic on some models.