Blog list page 2 loses recent posts links

Hi

I've got a sidebar in a blog displaying recent posts. All is fine until you go to page 2 of the pagination. The recent list then disappears.

I'm reusing code I've used elsewhere but I cannot get this to work on this site. I am using sections this time. But I've tried it without the sections without success. I've also tried it with the default blog templates and disabled any htaccess trickery. All fail to bring back the recent posts list once you browse to the second page of results. I've tried adding <perch:showall> but it doesn't return anything to the page beyond page 1 of the paginated results.

Many thanks in advance. Teething baby wailing in the background so sorry if I'm being really thick here. My brain is fried!

My three files are:

Index.php

<?php 

    perch_blog_custom(array(
    'count'=>'2',
    'section'=>"projects",
    'template'=>'post_in_list.html',


)); ?>

global.sidebar.php

<?php  
    perch_blog_custom(array(
                'count' => 3,
                'template' => 'posts_recent.html',
                'section' => 'projects',
                'sort' => 'postDateTime',
                'sort-order' => 'DESC',
));
?>

posts_recent.html

<perch:before>
<ul></perch:before>
<li><a href="<perch:blog id="postURL" />" rel="bookmark" class="entry-title"><perch:blog id="postTitle" /></a></li>
<perch:after></ul>
</perch:after>

I've noticed in the debug message that the template on page 2 fails to bring in the first line of the sql query.

First page:

0.0816  0.0012  Using template: /templates/blog/posts_recent.html
0.0819  0.0003  SELECT * FROM perch2_blog_sections ORDER BY sectionTitle ASC
0.0834  0.0015  SELECT * FROM perch2_blog_sections WHERE sectionSlug='projects' LIMIT 1
0.0836  0.0002  SELECT year(postDateTime) as year, COUNT(*) AS year_qty FROM perch2_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2015-05-06 17:22:00' AND sectionID='2' GROUP BY year ORDER BY year DESC

Second page:

0.073   0.0018  Using template: /templates/blog/posts_recent.html
0.0736  0.0006  SELECT * FROM perch2_blog_sections WHERE sectionSlug='projects' LIMIT 1
0.0739  0.0003  SELECT year(postDateTime) as year, COUNT(*) AS year_qty FROM perch2_blog_posts WHERE postStatus='Published' AND postDateTime<='2015-05-06 17:22:00' AND sectionID='2' GROUP BY year ORDER BY year DESC

My diagnosis report is:

Perch: 2.8.6, PHP: 5.5.22, MySQL: mysqlnd 5.0.11-dev - 20120503 - $Id: 15d5c781cfcad91193dceae1d2cdd127674ddb3e $, with PDO
Server OS: Darwin, apache2handler
Installed apps: content (2.8.6), assets (2.8.6), categories (2.8.6), perch_blog (4.6), perch_forms (1.8.3), perch_mailchimp (2.0.1)
App runtimes: <?php $apps_list = array( 'content', 'categories', 'perch_blog', 'perch_forms', 'perch_mailchimp', );
PERCH_LOGINPATH: /perch
PERCH_PATH: /Users/ellimondo/Dropbox/Sites/embersfireplaces/dev.embersfireplaces.co.uk/perch
PERCH_CORE: /Users/ellimondo/Dropbox/Sites/embersfireplaces/dev.embersfireplaces.co.uk/perch/core
PERCH_RESFILEPATH: /Users/ellimondo/Dropbox/Sites/embersfireplaces/dev.embersfireplaces.co.uk/perch/resources
Image manipulation: GD
PHP limits: Max upload 32M, Max POST 32M, Memory: 128M, Total max file upload: 32M
Resource folder writeable: Yes
HTTP_HOST: dev.embersfireplaces.co.uk
DOCUMENT_ROOT: /Users/ellimondo/Dropbox/Sites/embersfireplaces/dev.embersfireplaces.co.uk
REQUEST_URI: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/
SCRIPT_NAME: /perch/core/settings/diagnostics/index.php