Nick_Pyner:
The man most likely to be making a mistake is the man with two HC-06s.
On this occasion I must have got it right because the two HC06 devices I have do successfully talk to each other.
And before purchasing them off ebay I asked the advice of the arduino seller in the states anyway. And he made sure I was purchasing the correct components.
But as you say I have no way of telling which is the slave and which is the master.
Alright.....so what is your advice as to suitable hardware to connect a standard PC bluetooth gamepad to an arduino? Other than a USB host shield and usb bluetooth dongle?