Thanks. 4 hours of disconnected boredom :)

I completely agree with your assessment of the underlying lack of algorithm, which is basically why I took it no further (that and the phone engineer calling to tell me the line was back). It actually took much longer to write up (badly) than it did to do.

I hope that it will serve the OP in three ways.

1. You don't become a programmer in a week.
2. Copy & Paste is not the answer.
3. Small is beautiful. If you can see what your doing, often as not see, you can what your doing wrong.

++ to opus!