Hard drive slow down and pixellated screen.

Hi,
something really strange has just happened to my iMac G5.
I had installed a new widget today, the free sms one that is No1 in the dashboard top 10 and I have been modifying a tonne of album artwork in iTunes from Amazon, I also allowed sharing in iTunes. It was whilst doing all this that I noticed things really beginning to slow down. I had Skype, Mail, Safari and iTunes open. Alternating between them, things were not as fast as normal.
So seeing as the Mac has been on for about 3 days without a turn off, I thought it be time that I restart it.
The restart time was about ten minutes... it took about 4 to turn off and the rest to come back up again. It took a further five minutes before I could do anything once Finder was up.
First thing I did was go to disc utility to repair permissions. It got stuck.
I have since turned it off and unplugged at the mains. I have left for a while.
Rebooting continues to take an age, along with the fact that the hard drive sounds under major duress... it is chugging along and constantly whirring, sometimes getting very loud.
But now the icing on the cake, my screen has gone all haywire, there are black blocks everywhere and it is all pixellated, the dock is just grey and white.
Help me please!

"and unplugged at the mains."
Why?
"the pixellated screen was caused by a build up of dust within the Mac."
If the area where your computer is sittiing is that dusty and/or you have pets (dogs or cats) then maybe you should keep it covered when not in use. Use a pillow case if you do not have an old fashion computer cover-->

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