Thanks for your help folks.

Unfortunately there are many possible values for @mycolumnname.

I eventually came up with two more workable, though inefficient, solutions:

1. Write the value of @mycolumnname to a ##temptable...

If you're looking for reasons why not to put SQL and IIS on the same box....

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/dpoole/sqlandiisonthesamebox.asp

That works very nicely thank you.

SELECT TOP 3 ProductID, ProductName

FROM products

ORDER BY NEWID()

Tends to return

17 Alice Mutton

3 Aniseed Syrup

40 Boston Crab Meat

About 50% of the time!

I suspect this is due...

Most of our server names are 15 characters. Never had a problem either.

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