I've seen various adverts on Fleabay for workaround's to the Wireless USB Adaptor that MS insist you buy if you want to use the 360 wireless.

I can see the benefits of using the MS USB Adaptor, but even after 20 minutes of googling the cheapest price I can find it for is

That is correct I'm not sure how much they are though.

Another way around is to use a cross over cat 5 cable to a spare ethernet port on a pc thats connected to the internet and use internet connection sharing or bridge the connection

yeh if u have a laptop it's handy enough, plug xbox-laptop with ethernet cable, then the laptops wifi connection can be bridged.

failing that, buy a long cable and do it the old fashioned way

Wouldnt a Wifi router for

the xbox wi-fi is a small adapter you by for a rip-off price, which connects to one of the USBs at the back, and has special hole to clip into the back of the machine.

It has a cute little aerial on it too.

the official xbox wireless adapter is the only one that works via usb any other type like the linksys and netgear wireless gaming adapters work fine too only difference is that you have to use the ethernet port on the back to connect the xbox360 to the wireless gaming adapter .... i have used the official wireless adapter since launch and can honestly say i have had no problems . its easy to set up and it means you dont have to have another power supply like the other wireless adapters that i mentioned. the official adapter is also Dual band 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz Wireless A/B/G home network compatible

What about this item (NO Nothing to do with me):

eBay.co.uk: Microsoft Xbox 360

i went through the same thing and actually bought a belkin wireless gaming bridge, then a couple months later i bought the MS one as it was annoying me that much and was that much of a pain to setup and also wasn't that reliable.

just buy the MS one, i knwo its over priced but you plug it in and it works, you set it up via the x-box itself and its super straight forward.