actually u'd be astonished to realise u were a bit jumpy to post ur question :) u have inserted an extra ' in ur select statement, it should look like this 'p%' , the good news is .. ur syntax is ok, the bad news is .. ur varriable (letter) cought an extra quatation through god knows where operation, the problem with that is , u need to post ur full script for audition of how ur letter varriable was assigned