Thanks for doing that. I will send an email if the situation arises again.
I gather that the next version of WordPress will incorporate an automatic upgrade option which, as I understand it, downloads a zip/gz file then does everything else via shell commands, so presumably won't use FTP. Details
here if anyone is interested.
So I will be using FTP when 2.7 is ready and then I don't need to worry about it anymore which is good
.