is there a way of getting all the replys to a topic on 1 screen? at the minute i have to click on every different reply at the bottom of the screen. takes ages!

The precise reason for this happening is not known, but it is known to occur if you arrive on these Forums via a Google search. That then affects all other topics you look at, not just the one that you found via Google.

Fortunately, this little quirk is easy to fix...

At the top of every topic, towards the right hand side there is a little box with "Options" in it.

Select that and then from the drop-down menu, select "Switch to: Standard"

Hey presto - problem solved and everything appears as it should