Thanks to all who responded re the mysterious "Other.." user who appeared in my log-in list, and the 'blue screen' of, well, not death, just .. a long lie down.

My fears have now been allayed, and I am looking forward to working my way through the great 'blue screen' link provided by Martin. Ta!

For the record, I haven't yet figured out the cause, but the 'fix' was to restart from the OSX.2 cd and reset the password and privileges. One of the possible causes mentioned on the link was a corrupt system 9 font, which I think in my case is a fair possibility.

Thanks again

Jude
:))