Thanks George, Paul and David. I am enjoying turning so much and tickled pink that I'm able to get decent results. When I last turned - over 20 years ago - I was making some very mundane, functional stuff, so the 20-year break must have done me some good.
I bought a set of soft jaws for my self-centring chuck, just so that I could remove the original chuck/fixing marks.
Just one thing, David, when you say that a pair of V cuts could add to the piece, do you mean on the underside? I wouldn't have wanted to put any form of decorative mark on the outer face of the bowl, as I feel that the grain and the spalting make a strong enough statement to stand alone.
Thanks again, guys, for the encouraging remarks....Les