>
> almost, the problem is that the select first has no real
> meaning without an order by on that select within the union,
> but an order by at the point is not allowed
>
> ideally I would do:
>
> select first 25 skip 25 'A', id, result from ... ORDER BY id
> union select 2, count(*) from ...
> order by 1, 2
>
> but I'm not allowed to do the "ORDER BY id" because it's
> within the union
>

I guess in that case selectable stored procedure should be able to produce
the set that you want.

Sasha