>> although my machine also is (almost) idle, it took six minutes. i never 
>> ran into this before (and i do a lot of web serving, for many years now, 
>> on different OSs). weird.
> 
> It might be related to HTTP client keeping a connection open for a long time.

hm, should be possible to check (netstat, closing appropriate port on 
firewall in testing period...). but not today ;)