[Chicago] Making a list of strings

[Phil Robare]

OK fellow pythonistas,  can anyone explain what is going on here?

	I'm using a recent, but not most recent, version of Python.
Python 2.5.4 (r254:67916, Dec 23 2008, 15:10:54) [MSC v.1310 32 bit (Intel)]

	I want a list with a string value in it.  I make a sample string to
put in a list.
In [1]: s='string'

	The obvious way gives me something different but expected
In [2]: list(s)
Out[2]: ['s', 't', 'r', 'i', 'n', 'g']

	So I try appending something to a newly created empty list
In [3]: y=list().append(s)

	And I get a null value.  This is unexpected,
In [4]: y

	since doing the steps independantly gives me what I want.
In [5]: y=list()
In [6]: y.append(s)
In [7]: y
Out[7]: ['string']


I want to pass this as a parameter and it seems non-pythonic to have
to create a variable and then pass it when all I want is a single use.
 Any ideas for a better work-around?

Phil