strongeagle - whoever you made the bet with...go collect
durain - thanks for the offer but i decided to take the risk and use a free uk proxy server found via google (always hesitant to use random proxy servers but needed to progress this)...the O2 approach was going to take too long...and more importantly, from what I gathered, you have to be on their network (ie in the UK) for the remote unlock to work...
so i went ahead and tried the unlock myself using strongeagle's tips...it was pretty straightforward. The web articles said there may be problems with push notifications once the phone is jailbroke...but i haven't come across any issues. most importantly i changed the root password on my iphone so hopefully that should protect it from the recent hack.
thanks again to everyone...and i hope this thread is of use to others.
m.
ps durain -- i'm now trying to sort out a uk proxy server as the wife is suffering from Eastenders withdrawal symptoms (and i do miss Top Gear) so am looking into that. I found a service that you pay £5 a month for but it doesn't seem too great...if i make progress on this will post on a new thread for anyone else that may find it useful.