I think you'll agree that code is a lot cleaner; easier to read; and easier to maintain.

I certainly do agree!
Thanks Ken for this. Between this and other answers I think I can produce some much nicer code next time I am faced with this sort of problem.

I suppose you have your reasons for using 5.16

It's what is installed on the shared hosting...I have 5.32 on my laptop and even 5.28 on my mobile!

The webhost are doing an upgrade over night at the beginning of January. They have not said what is being upgraded but I'm hoping that they will installing a later version of Perl although I won't be holding my breath.

Like you, I normally work from home. My company doesn't have any offices so all my employees work remotely. We just have one small conference room for face to face meetings and I have an office next to that but unusually only visit about once a month and I have not been there since February due to the Pesky Pandemic which, here in the UK, seems to be getting worse rather than better - quite concerning as we are in the hospitality sector.