Hi Helen, Set,

i found a solution once i described the problem further in the earlier
replies to you.

select n.UserID, b.text from Bugs b left outer join Notifications n on
b.id=n.BugID where (n.UserID='T') or (n.UserID is null)

does this look the most sensible way to go? it certainly produces the data i
want

thanks once again

Kind regards,
Pete