Thank you for your replies .... sorry for taking a while to get back - I had some login problems as I have never posted to this site before! Hopefully now resolved.

The fact this is an issue is a message that I do in fact have some kind of comprehension about the whole thing. Fantastic!!!

After some initial difficulties (duh??) I have been reading more about inside-out objects and I have to agree with the poster that these must be the way forward.. alternatively using Moose? (your comments welcome) which negates the worry.

in general i am surprised by Perl's OO as I am used to Perl being well thought out. I guess OO is always a subjective thing (higher level than the sequential stuff?). ie gives more flexibility but also an enormous number of ways of doing things?