ok - still having some problems - I tried setting the normals to face after binding and that did sort out most of the problems - when I rotate the head the normals stay the same - but I still have some dark patches on the ears and eye and if I use the edit normals tool to correct these areas, they look fine in bind pose, but not when I start rotating the neck joint...

What am I doing wrong?

guess I shouldn't give up the day job just yet...