Yer there is a tesco's in the next town, we only got an asda and it's rubbish for anything speciality.  I will post my thoughts on it and hopefully some pics (although i am lazy in the pic department).  I should of ordered the organic rice bran oil of the internet, think i seen it somewhere but i had asked my local chinese shop first and they seemed keen to get some for me.  Even the chinese lady their who cooks a lot of chinese food had never heard of it, strange!

  I have ordered some organic virgin coconut oil, 'Bioana' or somthing like that.  400grams 6.75 pounds and 6.50 pounds delivery, so 13.25 quid and wow is that exspensive.  I convinced my girlfriend that it would be good for her skin so she let me buy it on her card.  I am hoping my local chinese shop can still get me the rice bran oil although what i have futher read on coconut oil suggests that i will be happy with it in the future.  I have taken my time to find a mild tasting one that won't flavour the food much and says that the taste cooks out and is barely noticable.  It does go on to say that it is good for weight loss and cholesterol and that the body burns up any fat real quick in the liver so i can't see why it would contribute to higher cholesterol, describes it as a neutral food so does no harm to cholesterol levels. looking like a real viable alternative to olive oils i hope and definatly withstands the high temps of frying.
  I am gona look at the rice bran oil again whilst the coconut info is still fresh in my head and hopefully midweek i will be able to tell you my opinions of curry fried with each different oil. So many oils to look at, maybe someone got some info on grapeseed oil for me as i thought it was rapeseed oil, now there is another oil on the market i didn't know about.

I too agree olive oil and curry don't mix, dosen't give the bir flavour and taste and seems not to fry the curry enough to pull out the bir look and taste.  This is through experimenting with it versus rapeseed/veg oil and veg oil won hands down.  I will never fry curry in olive oil again and like you said it is more suited for mediterranian cooking.  Incedentaly jamie oliver fried potatoes in virgin olive oil yesterday afternoon on his 30 min meal program and he certainly used a very low heat and cooked for a very long time so this is the way olive oil should be used and not for curry. Thanks

So i need the coconut oil labled 'virgin' to insure it has been untouched?  I will have to order offline as no shops sell the virgin coconut oil, not even holland and barret which is meant to be a good health food shop, they only stock coconut oil which as you say has probably been refined somehow.
I thought rice bran oil would be cheap as i think someone said in a previous post and would therefore be suitable for large quantity deep frying! One other thing to remember about rice bran oil is you can fry in it more than once futher reducing the price as it goes a whole lot futher than veg/sunflower oil which needs changing more reguarly.  Grapeseed oil is cheap in my asda and is lablled both as grapeseed oil and their standard vegetable oil for a quid a litre, just checked it again and sorry to cause any confusion but mine actually says rapeseed and not grapeseed so maybe there is a difference. Correct me if i'm wrong on this.
These posts have been very informative and hoping that coconut oil is the one for me although i am still waiting for the rice bran oil and may use both.

  JerryM this is complicated to explain but if the oil is heated too high it can produce carcinogenic sustances which are cancer related (smoke point not flame point).  I didn't want to say this as the 'C' word is very scary and misunderstood.  I doubt the risk is much but my health is the most important thing and can't put a price on it.  Its all to do with the frre redicals produced from most oils at high temps.  I don't want to go into it much futher as everyone needs to come to their own conclusion and with the internet being such a wealth of information i would recomend a few google searches first before listening to me.  I hate sunflower and veg oil as they came out the worst and hope to find an alternative that gives that takeaway taste and is actually good for me.  The problem is that the best tasting curries all seem to be made with veg oil and ghee so replicating their taste is also what i aim for. 
  I'm at a loss as to what to go for next, coconut oil seems great but i'm having difficulties in understanding it!  None of the coconut oils in my local healthfood shops say weather it is virgin coconut oil or wether it has been bleached, deoderised and refined which seems to be another type of coconut oil although all say that they are safe for cooking and frying as well as moisturising the skin.  I just don't want to commit to an oil unless i'm 100 percent certain.
  I am awaiting some rice bran oil if my local chinese shop can obtain it from their suppliers and hopefully someone can shed some light on the musterious coconut oil, i shop at holland and barret so if anyone uses this or can pop into the shop and verify that it is the type i want would be great, its in a green tub for 12.99
  I'm very extreme with healthy cooking and don't expect everyone to share my views about veg/sunflower oil, some people don't mind the hydrogenated fat it contains.  I will be using groundnut oil till i work out my best choice and although not a great healthy oil it certainly does withstand those high temps.
  To all those who love curry but have high cholesterol i am sorry because you have even less choices than me and truly it must be difficult.
 

 I think vegetable oil that i buy at asda is really grapeseed oil as the ingredients say, they just lable it veg oil and yes any veg is vegetable oil.  I just finished a curry with olive oil and man it didn't have any of the taste as veg/grapeseed oil, not even very oily and taste was a bit bland.  Not using olive oil again and it smoked loads during cooking.
  Adriandavid i like your idea of groundnut oil and have some at home from when i used to make bread as it takes very high temps.  I believe you that you don't have to heat some oils very hot for thaem to become unhealthy and the reason why the oil i fry in is so important.  My currys are mainly organic veg, onions, spices etc and hate the fact that i am making it with a bad choice of oil.  At least its stable at higher temperatures which is so important to me, just wish it was more healthy with the fats.
  Ok so i'm down to rice bran oil and virgin coconut oil, both unrefined and i'll pay the difference for virgin coconut oil if it is the best and healthiest.  I can't find any info on virgin coconut oil for frying curries, can it take the high temps without smoking?  Does it impart a taste on the curry?  And does it give that oily look at the end of cooking?
  I want to go with rice bran oil really but coconut oil seems to be a far more nutritious choice so if it stacks up i might be converted and try it.  I do like the idea of ground nut oil though and hadn't thought of it, bet it taste good to fry with it.
  Is there such thing as a healthy safe oil to fry with, must be some kind of miracle oil!

Ok guys i'm quite scientific and looked at rice bran oil.  I used the chart on wiki that you can get showing saturates, monosaturates and polyunsaturates along with the health benefits researched on about 15 sites.
  Its got its pros and cons and not perfect, dosen't natch up to olive oil in the kitchen health wise but it does allow very high temperatures of frying as well as hardly any smoke which is a really good benifit.  It has similar levels of fats as margerine but good amount of vitamins to make you live longer and feel healthier.  Unfortunatly refined olive oil looses some of its vitamins so rice bran oil beats it here although olive oil is better fat and cholesterol wise.  Coconut oil is basically just saturated fat so just as good as olive oil and unfortunatly needs refining, a process that uses nasty chemicals (so does veg oil,olive oil and sunflower), to allow it to be used for frying + exspensive.  Heres the best point about rice bran oil which i guess why it is gaining popularity in the west over veg oil and sunflower is that it dosen't need refining!  So yes rice bran oil is a good choice over olive oil when frying because of its high smoke point and being unrefined it still dosen't stack up to olive oil in the fats department and refined olive oil is ok to fry with (i personally don't like to even get refined olive oil too hot but see no reason why not too).
  So no oil really seems to be better and personally id stick to olive oil or coconut oil when making a curry and save the rice bran oil for deep frying and really high temps.  The main thing that i can take out of this is that there all better than vegetable oil and sunflower oil.  Hmm which oil to use, scratches head, i'm gona get back to using olive oil at home and see how it stacks up taste and heat wise compared to veg oil.  I will definatly deep fry with rice bran oil and think i am converted there being the healthiest option.  Coconut oil is too exspensive and harder too get so forget that in my kitchen dude although tell me more about it please as i never used it.  Is there any other oil that anyone on here uses that could be both better and healthier than olive and rice bran oil??

This truly is a simple and the best base i can find, my takeaway dosen't use sugar to get the sweetness in its curries and i always wondered how the hell they did it.  Now i know where and how the sweetness is obtained, its all in the onions and the oil pulls it out.  I never in my life thought that onions were sweet and that just adding oil to the initial cooking would bring it out.  I realise that longer cooking times may be needed and never set a timer more just wait till my base looks like its cooked, somedays it takes an hour and somedays two. Thanks mick/taz as i couldn't even pay to get this kind of cooking lesson.

Glad to help, the extra virgin olive oil and virgin olive oil are not suitable for frying and i suppose neither would veg oil if it wasn't refined first.  Extra virgin olive oil is more a salad oil and i know people do try to fry with it but it simply burns up at high temps.  Use it as a garnish or sald dressing.
  If you do like the taste of it in your curry you should add it at the very end so that it dosen't recieve the high heat from cooking.  I see olive oil to be just as pungent as most spices and has a bland unique taste.
  I am intrested to know more about 'rice bran oil' as i never heard of it before.  Can it withstand high temps and is it totally healthy or not unhealthy like olive oil?  I have tried to find an oil for a long time that is just as healthy as olive oil but will withstand such high temperatures as needed for indian curries.

Yer in the future i hope to post pics of my curries but am still learning at the moment.  Just didn't want to wade in on everyone elses ideas and presume i knew what i was talking about but thanks for confirming that oil in the start of base gravy cooking gives a much better flavour.  I just made a simple potato and spinach curry by adding oil to ginger, garlic and chilli powder and frying on high heat for couple of mins before adding my base gravy (mick/tazs).  Let this cook five mins and then i added cumin powder, garam massala and a small amount of tomato paste.  I let this cook ten mins before adding pre boiled potatos and spinach.  Three mins later and voila a scrumptious simple basic tasty curry that was out of this world and as good as my local takeaway, no sorry better than my local takeaway.  I love the simplicity of the spices in this meal and the oily texture.  The base gravy (mick/tazs) is almost like a curry so there is not a lot to do to turn it into the final version.  I was going to add a few tablespoons of cream but thought i'd leave it out as i wanted that wholesome taste.  Honestly its still hit and miss but i'm turning out my own takeaway food and its that simple. Thanks for the input and help.