Good luck, keep us updated. Hope it works out for you.

I meant my supervisor was like that from the start....

Ahh, I sympathise, except my supervisor is an evil monster disguised as someone nice.
The parent comments They've stepped up now I've submitted....

It's taken me about 2-3 days to stop being stressed and to start relaxing. I'm now looking at the Internet in bed

The best thing would be to practice with lots of people. My supervisor suggested asking one person to maybe do 20 pages to get a feel for the level of questionning, and said he's do about 2 practices with me. I'm very shy and this is my weak point. My advisors are quite agressive, and really pulled me apart and reduced my confidence in my yearly meetings. We're going for gentle, "human" examiners so I don't fall to pieces!
Good luck with yours, I've just submitted.

Yes, you may have noticed how my number of posts increased significantly in the last few weeks

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki
I've seen 2 on media wiki

Answering Rick, you set up a kind of blank webpage with your own headings and subheadings and add your own information. You can add passwords and limit access to yourself, or a few people.
You can post pictures, send messages and track changes you have made.

I strikes me as a good idea, if you mean "wiki" as opposed to "wikipedia."
We have a committee one. It would make finding info easier as long as you had easy to use menus. Someone here used one for corrections after her viva.

I've now submitted :-)
How are the others getting on that are around the same stage?

It depends whether you use it. Materials and methods would be good to have written down to thesis standard, and collect and store pictures as you go.
I used a tiny part of my literature review. Notes on key papers and points might be good in case you go back to it 2 years later.

I should add
5?)store files in a logical way e.g. named folders so you can find them without having to remember where they are. I've had the complication of using 2 laptops. Naming files well helps, and sometimes adding the date. You might end up with 3 versions of chapter 3 and not know which is which. I kept different versions so I wouldn't lose things I had taken out if I wanted them later.

6) make sure you have a good back-up, my partner had my thesis backed up on a server and I could download files from home/work via the internet

"I've been told that if i drop out or am kicked out it puts a black mark on the department which isnt looked upon very well by funding bodies. They lose the rest of my research funding"
If you drop out after a year it shouldn't as typically people register as MPhil and upgrade to PhD at the end of the 1st year. Dropping out after this point is not finishing and is bad.
To be honest I would think, tough, the responsibility is theirs to stick to targets etc.

Are they just trying to give you a kick up the backside and saying you just need a different approach?
Do you have monthly meetings with your supervisor? It is university policy at my uni, and you have to give a copy of progress/targets to the department. I presume that would have highlighted their issues earlier.
You could try and work out (ask) what your supervisor thinks you should be doing and what he would like to see you do. You could ask a friendly academic or postdoc for advice so you get the benefit of advice from someone experienced but don't go straight to your supervisor. I think questions are OK if you have done some research on your own first e.g. tried others and journals first.

I've heard there is more pressure to work hard e.g. longer hours and weekends.

I'm about to hand in my thesis. I've been thinking about how I would have done my thesis with what I know now.
1)Have your references stored as you go along
2)Be wary of adding colour pictures as if you use 2 printers you will have to go through page by page adding colour pages. It will take 1-2 days, especially if you see mistakes in the 1st copy.
3)Start with the correct margins from the regulations, and work out your font/heading styles at the start, and when you are going to use capitals. If you work it out at the beginning and stick to it, you won't end up with varying styles all the way through that are a knightmare to check. Use a style sheet.
4)Open office: references are a knightmare, symbols might not transfer to Word. English UK spellchecking and the style sheet formats need to be set up BEFORE you start writing, save a template.
5)Everything will take longer than you planned