Yeah - it's hard for me to tell too... ;-)

The VF code looks something like this (with some boring bits cut-out)

<apex:repeat var="sel" value="{!sElements}" >
    <apex:variable var="noItems" value="{!sel.content_type__r.List_Length__c}" />
    <apex:variable var="scl" value="{!noItems}"/>
    <apex:repeat var="scl" value="{!sContentList}" >

        <!-- Only list content of THIS content type -->
        <apex:variable var="sclRender" value="{!(scl.Content_Type__c=sel.Content_Type__c)}" />
        <apex:variable var="sclRender" value="{!IF(noItems<=0, false, sclRender)}" />
        <apex:outputPanel rendered="{!sclRender}" >

        <!-- SNIP -->

        </apex:outputPanel>
    </apex:repeat>
</apex:repeat>

and the relevent bits of the controller look something like this (I've moved to dynamic SOQL but it still behaves the same) :-

    private list<string> keywordList {get; set;}
    private list<string> selList {get; set;}
    private integer iKey;

    public list<Sidebar_Element__c> getsElements() {

        //new keywords list
        keywordList = new list<string>();
        //new sidebar elements list
        selList = new list<string>();
        //initialise index
        iKey = 0;
        list<Sidebar_Element__c> elements =
            [Select id, Name, Order_On_Page__c, Page_Layout__c, Content_Item__c, Content_Type__c,
            Twitter_Feed__c, No_of_Tweets__c, Keyword__c,
            Content_Item__r.Heading__c, Content_Type__r.Title__c, Content_Type__r.View_All__c, Content_Type__r.View_All_Dest__c,
            Content_Type__r.List_Length__c, Content_Type__r.Synopsis_Length__c
            From Sidebar_Element__c where Page_Layout__c = :pgId order by Order_On_Page__c asc];
            //build keywords list for this sidebar element
            for (Sidebar_Element__c sel : elements) {
                if(sel.Keyword__c != null)
                    keywordList.add('%' + sel.Keyword__c + '%');
                else keywordList.add('%');
                selList.add(sel.id);
                sclList.add(getsContentList2());
            }
            for (string key : keywordList) system.debug(key);
            for (string sel : selList) system.debug(sel);
    
        return elements;

       public list<Content_Item__c> getsContentList() {
        system.debug(selList[iKey]);
        system.debug(keywordList[iKey]);
             
        // create the query string
        String qryString =
            'Select URL_Link__c, Image__c, Synopsis__c, Release_Date__c, Name, Heading__c, Content_Type__c, ' +
            'Internal_Link_Prefix__c, Keywords__c, Attachment__c, (Select Id From Attachments limit 1), ' +
            '(Select Id From Contents__r limit 1), ' +
            'Content_Type__r.Id, Content_Type__r.Title__c, Content_Type__r.Show_Date__c, ' +
            'Content_Type__r.Image_Position__c, Content_Type__r.Image_Border__c, ' +
            'Content_Type__r.Read_More__c, Content_Type__r.Read_More_Dest__c, ' +
            'Content_Type__r.List_Length__c, Content_Type__r.Synopsis_Length__c, ' +
            'Content_Type__r.List_Style__c, Content_Type__r.Searchable__c, ' +
            '(Select id From Sidebar_Elements__r) From Content_Item__c ' +
            'where Content_Type__c in (select Content_Type__c From Sidebar_Element__c where id = ' + '\'' + selList[iKey] + '\') ' +
            'and Keywords__c like ' + '\'' + keywordList[iKey] + '\'' + ' order by Release_Date__c desc';
        
        system.debug(qryString);
        list<Content_Item__c> contentList = Database.query(qryString);

        system.debug(iKey);
        system.debug(keywordList[iKey]);
        iKey++;
        return contentList;
     }

I'm guessing that the problem is this myserious word 'Aggregations: ' in the log.  It seems to somehow be 'aggregating' the SOQL queries and ignoring the dynamic bit completely - so it just uses the first 'keyword' and 'selList' it gets for all the SOQL queries in the repeat loop.

So how do I make it behave and do a seperate SOQL for each itteration through the outer repeat loop - surely this isn't how dynamic SOQL is supposed to work?