Contacted O2 by email on Sunday and stated that it's not good enough. MMS is a standard feature and told them I am not getting the full service I am paying for.

A questionaire came through by return asking things like any error messages, does the phone work with another sim (yes), Does your sim card work in another phone (no).

Swapped sim cards with my orange payg and put this in his phone and of course it worked. Gave O2 a lengthy discription of what I did and the MMs is working now. Seemed to be enough to get their arses into gear when I told them that the supplied phone worked with an Orange sim card.

So we are both up and running now.