sockets and refused connections

Hello people,

I need some help getting postgresql started on an amd64 machine running
gentoo 2005.1.

when reloading postgres I get the following error in the logs:
<<
LOG:  shutting down
LOG:  database system is shut down
LOG:  could not send test message on socket for statistics collector:
Operation not permitted
LOG:  disabling statistics collector for lack of working socket
LOG:  database system was shut down at 2005-12-16 09:04:16 CET
LOG:  checkpoint record is at 0/AC5188
LOG:  redo record is at 0/AC5188; undo record is at 0/0; shutdown TRUE
LOG:  next transaction ID: 559; next OID: 17231
LOG:  database system is ready
>>
3rd and 4th lines stand out.

When tring to connect with a client (pgaccess) I get the following error
and no access (no pun intended).

<<
Error trying to connect to database 'test'
 on host localhost

PostgreSQL error message: Connection to database failed
couldn't open socket: connection refused
>>

My guess is that I have a socket problem.  How do I go about solving
this?

Thanks for any help.

Dirk