Thanks for the reply.
I did get to the bottom of this last night.
I Stepped through the thread of execution commenting out code until it would run with errors slowly letting more code run until i found the offending line(s).
Basically it was interpreting this line (378 or so) in DataObject.php
$this->_build_condition($this->table()) ;
as static call to a non existant method with a name something like £"%$£%.
Then it would totally fail if i left any further method calls runs.
However rewritting the line as
$temp=$this->table();
$this->_build_condition($temp) ;
fixed it and allowed expected execution.
Anybody who can offer any explainations of informed guesses as to why this should be so please speak up cos i'm clueless.
I can only assume that it is some weird flaw in the php module or the server its self.
fgf