cheers Ray but unfortunately that errors with the following:
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'productcategories LEFT OUTER JOIN productcategories AS productcategories_2 ON pr' at line 1
SELECT products.*, productcategories.*, productmanufacturers.*, productcategories_2.CategoryName AS parentcategoryname FROM products LEFT JOIN productcategories ON products.ProductCategoryID = productcategories.CategoryID productcategories LEFT OUTER JOIN productcategories AS productcategories_2 ON productcategories_2.CategoryID = productcategories.CategoryParentID LEFT JOIN productmanufacturers ON products.ProductManufacturerID = productmanufacturers.ManufacturerID