Got the coils off, at which point i noticed one of my coils (cyl 4, not the one misfiring) was rusty despite being changed less than 3 months ago under the recall:
(Advice welcome about that^.)
There is a special grease which the stealers should have used - it has only been out about three years - so VW stealers might not yet be up to speed.
Here we go - G 052 141 A2 - its only a dinky 20ml tube, and you'll need about 15 beer tokens - but if used correctly, will stop coil rusting, and make insertion and removal much easier.