So looking with fresh eyes at my semi working version of D8, which was installed via the web based installer it was clear that something was just fundamentally wrong. So as with so many Drupal based activities it seems logical to turn to drush (you'll need the version that works with drush 8 of course) to save the day!

$ drush si
You are about to DROP all tables in your 'abc_123' database. Do you want to continue? (y/n): y
Starting Drupal installation. This takes a while. Consider using the --notify global option. [ok]
Installation complete. User name: admin User password: ********** [ok]
Congratulations, you installed Drupal! [status]


And it did, now I have a shiny blank install of D8 here: http://d8.hazlewood.co.uk

Onwards and upwards to setting it up to receive a copy of this blog and setup a theme!