Thanks for that. And yes I loooked at the real life query I was trying to model and it is considerably easier using XML PATH. So that’s settled then...

thanks for that - i like this as it offers pretty much what i want to display - unfortunately i didn't mention that i would need a variable number of...

genius - that works a treat - with a little tweaking it'll work on my full data set - i really do need to get my head properly around the...