Thanks Chris and Chris, you've solved it.

I had a gui open that connects to the database. It was doing nothing
(and not preventing me adding to or altering headwords_core via psql),
but having closed it the table is instantly created. Weird.

BTW, referencing the same column twice is deliberate, it's a
cross-reference.

Sue

Chris Mair wrote:
>> This is my first post to the performance list, I hope someone can
help me.
>>
>> I'm setting up a table with 2 columns, both of which reference a
column in another table:
>>
>> CREATE TABLE headwords_core_lexemes (
>> core_id int REFERENCES headwords_core(core_id),
>> lexeme_id int REFERENCES headwords_core(core_id),
>> );
>>
>> Trouble is, it's taken 18 hours and counting! The table
headwords_core only has about 13,000 lines, and core_id is the primary
key on that table. However, I assume it must be those 13,000 lines that
are the problem, since if I try it referencing a similar table with 360
lines the new table is created almost instantly.
>>
>
> Hi,
>
> the 13000 rows in headwords_core don't matter at all for what this
> statement concerns. I bet you have another idle transaction that keeps
> headwords_core locked, for example because you did an
> alter table headwords_core there...
>
> Bye,
> Chris.
>
>

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