Thanks again for the answers.

An update: when starting from cold the car is producing alot of smoke. As far as I can tell this is steam rather than oil. (it smells steamy and not oily!)

This stops pretty much completely when the car is up to temperature.

I guess this also points to head gasket but why does the smoke/steam stop and if the head gasket was gone between water passage and combustion chamber why is the car not running even the slightest bit rough???

Oil is also still clean. No white deposits or milky appearance on filler cap or dip stick

I'm confused

Cheers