$white isn't used because i was going to use it later, the font is definatly there and the font type is regconised (the stringFT is espically for TTF fonts) Although i haven't tried starting at the origin. Er, well i have now :) and it doesn't work. Thanks for the input but nah, it doesn't work.
I take that back, it seems that if i create it at least 10 pixels away from the origin it works, Thanks :D Insight It turns out that it draws from the bottom left of the string so putting it at 0,0 made it invisible :)