Safari on Ipod Touch keeps crashing

Hi- I'm new here and would really appreciate some help.

I've got an iPod Touch G4 and everytime I go to Safari, it opens, shows my History for a fraction of a second then closes. It also won't open iTunes and or YouTube, but Skype, Spotify, and Twitter are working (although certain links from Twitter don't work).

I've gone to settings and cleared History and Cache. When I go to Clear Cookies, it closes and sends me back to the Home screen.

I updated the software and restored factory settings.

Does anyone have any ideas please?

Thanks.

Have you ever actually turned the iPod Touch completely off (that is to say, NOT just "put it to sleep" but actually powered it down)? I find that's the number one thing people don't realize they need to do every so often.

Thanks Chas M- first thing I did. In the end this worked (via Apple support: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1567):

Close iTunes and disconnect the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
Choose Start > Control Panel.
Inside the Control Panel, open Administrative Tools.
Open Services.
Select Apple Mobile Device and click Stop the service as shown below:
Select Apple Mobile Device and Stop the service
After the service has stopped, click Start the service.
After the Apple Mobile Device service has started again, open iTunes and connect the device.

Oh PCs, why must you be so overly complicated?