Thanks to all who offered advice on the question I put 10 days ago. Suffice to say all did not go as planned but it's pretty much finished now.
In the end I went for laminate on the basis it was easier and faster to lay (ROFL). I had discarded the carpet but retained the rubber backed underlay and added the green insulation stuff which is essentially compressed paper, easy to cut but incredibly dusty.
Lessons learned
The glueless laminate used is Floormaster from B&Q and this is the first time I've attempted to lay it. Its gone down over pretty poor floorboards and the variation in the height of the floor makes laying the laminate very difficult indeed. Or so I thought. As I got around 2/3 of the way across the room I noticed that some of the laminate itself wasn't flat (!!) and that obviously had compounded the difficulty.
This really is a two man job as when laying board 2, board 1 pops out a little or more often a lot. There's no easy slot in of #2 as #1 has to be raised to allow the leading edge to mate properly etc. It's a pain. Needless to say except for two rows I've had to do the rest myself. Sloooooowly....
Somewhat disappointed that a fair number of new boards had small damage along the laminate edges while in the pack and would have taken them back if I had had the energy.... managed to use them for offcuts at first but in the end just laid the damn things.
Wastage: there's too much of it. Probably mostly down to the room/property where no wall is at 90deg to another and walls and chimney breast aren't parallel!!!!! Left with a 2" gap at the end and as I haven't put the beading down yet I'm left contemplating the awful job of cutting a 1.5" infill (4 planks, so expensive) or pulling the whole floor across (it can be done surprisingly) and using larger beading instead.
**Suggestions gratefully received**
Also a conundrum: the room ends in a mezzanine stair and terminating the whole width of floor aesthetically is a challenge as there's no banister. Again
**Suggestions gratefully received**
HTH anyone else contemplating laying a laminate floor. If you have a rectangular room with a concrete floor it's probably not too bad, anything else ... well expect the worst.