Froggie, maybe the neighbour is getting their boiler serviced by a fella who goes out to the boiler house, sits down, lights a fag, waits the required 15 minutes, rubs a bit of soot on his hands are then reappears!!
Joking aside, you can be lucky and the burner was setup perfectly by the installer all those years ago and hasn't needed any adjustment. For the sake of completeness have a look inside the boiler itself (easily accessed by removing the plate on the side of the boiler) and see if there is any soot.
My experience in five years of DIY servicing is that the photocell got dirty twice and needed a wipe. The white enamel on the electrodes broke once when changing the nozzle – it may have been faulty to start with. I use a smoke tester to check flue gases. I also found wear on the one of the electric wires which could have let to a nasty shock or breakdown when I least expected it.