Erk. I use 'dear' a lot. But not in a patronising manner! (I hope). Am sorry to hear you are cranky. Would you like to join me when I toast marshmellows over the smoldering remains of my finance department? (Is supposedly sorted now but I still plan to burn them to the ground.)

Am working my way through my comments at the moment but wanted to say: thank you so much for your suggestions. I need the gender/age thing for the section on my participants (butnot for my actual hypothesis, I wanted to leave it out by the supervisor was all 'no, no - you need a bit about the people you ae asking!'.) but I did add a 'prefer not to say' section as per your advice.