A few folks have asked how I pull the blog feeds through to this home page, so here is the code I use, as a little gift for being awesome people, I have pulled it through exactly as I use it so that you can see and toy with a working example in all it nasty detail.

<div id="news">
 <h3><span>Web design </span>News and other stuff<span> like general design stuff, freelance issues web site portfolio updates and general guff otherwise known as a bit of chit chat</span>:</h3>

<ul>

<?php

set_time_limit(0);

$file = "http://mccoy.co.uk/blog/wp-rss.php";

$rss_channel = array();
$currently_writing = "";
$main = "";
$item_counter = 0;

function startElement($parser, $name, $attrs) {
 global $rss_channel, $currently_writing, $main;
 switch($name) {
 case "RSS":
 case "RDF:RDF":
 case "ITEMS":
 $currently_writing = "";
 break;
 case "CHANNEL":
 $main = "CHANNEL";
 break;
 case "ITEM":
 $main = "ITEMS";
 break;
 default:
 $currently_writing = $name;
 break;
 }
}

function endElement($parser, $name) {
 global $rss_channel, $currently_writing, $item_counter;
 $currently_writing = "";
 if ($name == "ITEM") {
 $item_counter++;
 }
}

function characterData($parser, $data) {
 global $rss_channel, $currently_writing, $main, $item_counter;
 if ($currently_writing != "") {
 switch($main) {
 case "CHANNEL":
 if (isset($rss_channel[$currently_writing])) {
 $rss_channel[$currently_writing] .= $data;
 } else {
 $rss_channel[$currently_writing] = $data;
 }
 break;
 case "ITEMS":
 if (isset($rss_channel[$main][$item_counter][$currently_writing])) {
 $rss_channel[$main][$item_counter][$currently_writing] .= $data;
 } else {
 $rss_channel[$main][$item_counter][$currently_writing] = $data;
 }
 break;
 }
 }
}

$xml_parser = xml_parser_create();
xml_set_element_handler($xml_parser, "startElement", "endElement");
xml_set_character_data_handler($xml_parser, "characterData");
if (!($fp = fopen($file, "r"))) {
 die("could not open XML input");
}

while ($data = fread($fp, 4096)) {
 if (!xml_parse($xml_parser, $data, feof($fp))) {
 die(sprintf("XML error: %s at line %d",
 xml_error_string(xml_get_error_code($xml_parser)),
 xml_get_current_line_number($xml_parser)));
 }
}
xml_parser_free($xml_parser);

// output HTML

if (isset($rss_channel["ITEMS"])) {
 if (count($rss_channel["ITEMS"]) > 0) {

 for($i = 0;$i < 3;$i++) {
//        for($i = 0;$i < count($rss_channel["ITEMS"]);$i++) {
 if (isset($rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["LINK"])) {
 print ("n<li class="sectionhomeintro sectionhomelistitem quiet"><h4>" . $rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["CATEGORY"] . "<a href="" . $rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["LINK"] . "" >" . $rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["TITLE"] . "</a></h4><span>");
 } else {
 print ("n<li class="sectionhomeintro sectionhomelistitem quiet"><h4>" . $rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["CATEGORY"] . "<br />" . $rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["TITLE"] . "</h4><span>");
 }

 print ("" . $rss_channel["ITEMS"][$i]["DESCRIPTION"] . "");

 print ("</span></li>");
 }
 } else {
 print ("<li class="notme"><span>There are no articles in this feed.</span></li>");
 }
}

?>

 </ul>
 <a href="http://www.mccoy.co.uk/blog/"><img src="/bucket/furniture_pixels/more.gif" alt="Read the rest of the news" /></a>
 </div><!-- close news -->

Any refinements or improvements are most welcome just add a comment.

I would also be interested if anyone has a solution as to how to pull in WordPress post image content. in the same manner!