Thank you for the reply.
Fn-F8 disables the touchpad and indeed if I disable it I can use a USB mouse
fine.
This suggests to me that there is something up with the touchpad itself, so I
will probably end up having to send it back.
However before I do that I'd like to check whether I have a correct driver
installed and also re-install it to see if it is a driver issue.
Does anyone know which driver should be being used for the touchpad, how I
can tell I am using the correct one and where I can get the correct one if
the wrong one is currently installed ?
