Urgent help needed!!

[Cov_Rob]

Last night on my way to work my Passat cut out and refused to start. I didnt get a chance to look at it as i needed to get to work so i left it at the side of the road and carried on to work. When i finished work 9 hours later i came back to the car to see if it would start. The car started, but ran very lumpy for about 5 seconds then cut out. This happens every time i start the car, it will rev, but seems quite unresponsive to the accelerator. When i looked closer under the bonnet i noticed a buzzing coming from a small cylinder above the distributor next to the intake, along with a vibration from the attatched pipe (see pic) What is this, and could it be the cause of the problem. Also, when the ignition is switched on, the water temp light flashed 4 or 5 times and the oil light flashed constantly.

It is a 1990 1.8 16v passat gt saloon