Sorry, you do seemed to have reaped the whirlwind!
When Virgin pilots refer to a 'relief pilot', we're talking about the First Officer (or sometimes a Captain) who is operating as third pilot on a sector (single flight) that requires three pilots due to flight duty time limitations. On these sectors, one pilot will operate as Pilot Flying (PF), one as Pilot Non-Flying (PNF) and one as relief. PF and PNF operate together for take-off and landing. The relief pilot will occupy one of the seats for the middle two thirds of the flight, while either PF or PNF is getting their head down. There will always be two pilots on duty.
I am operating as relief pilot on the Los Angeles flight I'm currently on. As this is a training flight for a captain who has been reassigned from the B747-200, I get the dubious pleasure of operating relief both ways. Normally, I would get relief one way and PF or PNF the other.
P1u/s is a CAA logbook designation for a First Officer operating as PF. It stands for First Pilot Under Supervision.
As for being a 'cheeky upstart', Virgin celebrated 21 years in business this year. I think we've moved on from that image now, though we still try to be fun and entertainment-focussed. Well, on the Airbus at least.
Virgin has always operated its own training system. Initially (21 years ago), Vigin used recently-retired ex-BA TRI/TRE pilots to start the training system. Currently, the training department includes something like 100 pilots. Ground training is carried out at Virgin's 'The Base' in Crawley. We don't have our own simulators at the moment; we use BA's for the B744, and GECAT and Lufthansa for the A340-300 and -600 respectively (though the training staff are always Virgin). From next year, we will have our own simulator complex at Burgess Hill, with both A340-600 and B747-400 simulators.
Hope this clears things up.
Scroggs