A preceeding slash in all the URLs seems to have fixed that, mission accomplished. Thanks for the help UT, hope this thread is of use to some other poor soul one day.

Wild-ass guess, maybe RewriteBase / before the second one?

Never mind! Good going Jag!

Tried that, didn't seem to do much but left it in anyway, one of the superstitious things that'll probably cause me countless hours of frustration down the line when I forget, such is life =)

me too.