Hi Sam, Thankyou for the suggestions. They make perfect sense to me. I appreciate your time and input. The lack of optimiser usage was something that I had not considered, and I thank you for making me aware of it. Cheers The Frog -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general