Best way to ask the user to wait?

[graham samuel]

Hi listers

I'd like to put up a kind of advisory note to the user saying something 
like

"Please wait while we process your request"

I don't want any reaction from the user, such as clicking on "OK" or 
"Cancel" - I just want to warn her/him that it may take some time to 
complete the next task. During this period, I have a nice animation for 
the person to look at, but I don't really want to add my note to the 
animated display. I suppose the usual thing is to put the cursor into 
'hourglass' or 'pizza' mode (according to platform) and of course I can 
do this, but I just want to show my message first.

What's the best way to implement this, do you think?

TIA

Graham
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Graham Samuel / The Living Fossil Co. / UK and France