Both Mike and Artur were a little shocked by the tyre, but they had no problem in ordering me a replacement. This won't be here until next week, so at the moment the Ducati is wearing a scrubbed Bridgestone Battlax on the rear, but it should be fine for the type of riding I have planned for the Bank Holiday weekend thou.
I sent some pictures off the Performance Bikes magazine this morning to see if they were interested and got a positive reply from the Deputy Editor Emma Franklin. Hopefully this tyre is just an one off and its making its way back to Pirelli via the distributor, but if there's a faulty batch, it could end very badly.