wrote:

No I didn't use "-d" but given I was pinging the IP address directly, would it make a difference?

just that your traceroute consisted entirely of non-responding hops wih
asterisk, or responding hops with only an IP addr, but no hops where the
name could be resolved, but then if getting to 8.8.8.8 is difficult not
to unexpected, try settin DNS to BT's local server for a while?