brilliant thanks Jason
in the same context and taking it a little further, if I wanted to remove a link I was wondering if I am on the right path here:
<?php echo(str_replace(array("<p>","</p>"),"",substr(preg_replace("/<img[^>]+\>/i","/\<a([^>]*)\>([^<]*)\<\/a\>/i", " ",$row_NewsRS['NewsContent']),0,120))."..."); ?>
where the link content would remain byt the <a> tags would be removed....