[quote="knackeredMk1"]It is bad practice to put oil in the premix and use the pump. This could explain the black wet plug because the engine is being way overdosed with oil. If there is a lot of oil in the crankcase you will need to drain it out. This could cause the engine to run very rich or not r...

So...putting the kickstarter issue to one side (and as I cannae do bugger all fault finding til it's resolved I might as well throw this out there)... the damn thing decides of it's own free will to not to fire up, despite a couple of months ago having no problems what so ever. There's fuel there......