Thanks Mike; it's taken me nearly 2 years to get a decent position after a succession of jobs in which i was undervalued, underpaid, and generally abused, or short term contract positions which never had a future (but paid well and were good experience.) I find it very ironic that after struggling to get a decent permanent position for that length of time, two come up at once, with the likelihood of a third in a couple of weeks. I've been having interviews almost every day since I got laid off 5 weeks ago so I was fairly confident this time round, and without doubt the IT trade has picked right up this year (last year was terrible, the market was dead) so if you're looking to get a position in the business, now's the time. PHP and MySQL developers are at a premium, as is anyone with Unix skills.

oddly enough our IT trade tends to pick up when the dollar is weak

Good Luck Pete

well thank you, darling; it's gone very well in this first week, I think I'll enjoy working there, god willing. Nice to have a job with a decent company for a change the travel is a bit of a nightmare though, I'll try the chuffer train next week.