Right on Madmatt!
I use a hotmail account for most things on the net and once you have an account, from your Hotmail Home Page, Select Options, then under Mail Handling, select JUNK MAIL FILTER. There are four options ranging from OFF to EXCLUSIVE. Each Option has a full explaination of what it does - I use HIGH so I can look at what is going to my Junk Mail Folder and see if there is anything I want to keep, and then do the "This is not Junk Mail thingy!" if I want to keep it.
Also under Junk Mail Delection - you can select immdediate or delayed. Using delayed you can see what is being filtered - or immediate - it will never get to your account.
I went ot England last October for three weeks vacation and I use Exclusive and Immediate Deletion and came home to ZERO Junk Mail!
Hope you can understand what I am getting at!