Having looked at your FAQ I understand his could be an issue whereby I need to put all of my items into a menu.

1. this is quite long winded... or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
2. In order to shorten this process... could I simply add a K2 item to the menu which covers all categories? 

I have indeed.  It seem to work some of the time...  but not for this particular item.

Would it be anything to do with the category?  I have uploaded these particular items to a menu (which is not published to an existing module position)