Exception in thread "main" org.lwjgl.opengl.OpenGLException: Cannot use offsets when Array Buffer Object is disabled
   at org.lwjgl.opengl.GLChecks.ensureArrayVBOenabled(GLChecks.java:69)


I have no idea what this is or how to fix it, please help

Have you enabled VBOs? You can only use them if you enabled them.

See the wiki for more details about VBO.
http://lwjgl.org/wiki/doku.php/lwjgl/tutorials/opengl/basicvbo

One thing you might check is for the correct version of the method you are calling.
For example, glDrawElements() has multiple overloads. The version that doesn't take a buffer can only be called when VBOs are enabled. The other versions can only be called when VBOs are disabled.
This is very confusing starting out, since VBOs aren't part of OpenGL 1.1 but glDrawElements() for VBOs is still defined in GL11 :lol:

thanks for the heads-up guys. Seems I was calling glDrawElephants with the wrong arguments. Now going back to basics to work out exactly what I should be doing