Thanks gents, but no luck.
It would appear that Realplayer is only designed to operate from bookmarked shortcuts, necessitating a fresh download each time (a bit tedious on dial-up). ...BRL; that was your inferrence, I think. ...CosmosSchwartz; have you ever tried that? ...RealPlayer temporary files have a mind of their own, unlike the Internet Explorer variety that hang around until used again or deleted. ...Just select the temporary file and watch a clip download. ...It self destructs and disappears the moment the Player is closed (!) ...I thought I was being very clever in making a copy and pasting elsewhere before it did, but it will have no truck with that either.
Ah well.....