How to remove/ignore most recent kernel?

After the most recent kernel upgrade, my system hangs during boot. Since my machine seems especially persnickety about pulling up the grub menu*, what is the best way to set the previous kernel as the default until the next upgrade?

*I have to hit ESC at exactly the right moment, which usually means rebooting several times until I get it.

An nice application is available in the Software Centre which should help you. Its called "Startup Manager".

It looks like this:

Choose the Kernel you wish to default to in the drop-down list and then click Close to complete.

Once started with the old kernel, modify your /etc/default/grub with

GRUB_DEFAULT="title"

where "title" is the exact menu title of the kernel you want to start. You can somehow obtain this with

grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Then run sudo update-grub and you can live until the next kernel upgrade, when you can set back GRUB_DEFAULT to 0 or choose another "title".