I've just noticed that when calling python from the command line, it just calls python from /usr/bin/python on account that it started v2.6:
$ python
Python 2.6.6 (r266:84292, Jun 11 2019, 11:01:44)
However, when running "which python", it correctly points to a newer version installed in a conda environment, calling it directly I see it starts the expected newer version.
$ which python
~/miniconda3/bin/python
$ ~/miniconda3/bin/python
Python 3.8.5 (default, Sep 4 2020, 07:30:14)
Python hasn't been aliased:
$ alias | grep python
$
and the conda environment path comes before the standard "/usr/bin" in my $PATH, so I don't understand why it executes python from "/usr/bin".
Any idea what could be going on?