Thanks all for your advice. I have replaced the cable with one through
length and persuaded a friend to do the soldering. No improvement. These
clicks are random and occur on either one or both channels. The cable is not
touched during recording, in fact the computer isn't either. The clicks are
easy to edit out but this takes an age and I was hoping that replacing the
cable would alleviate the problem The last recording I made was of a 1953
performance and it may have been that the clicks were inherent in the
recording although I doubt it. With regard to shared IRQ, I'm not sure what
that means but IRQ9 on my computer is shared with an ALi PCI to USB Open
Host Controller. !! This is really beyond me but could this be the problem.
If so then I think that I shall just leave it since it sounds incredibly
complicated for a thickie like myself. I would like to know though. The USB
connections on my Pc are used for my printer and my scanner neither of
which are in used when I record music. Thanks again.

Go into Device Manager and disable the USB controllers. If this cures
the clicks, either disable these devices before each audio session, or
come back here and ask what to do to solve the problem properly.