Ah see this is where it gets slightly more in depth and confusing..
I was hoping I could find the standard way of getting the keywords and from there figure out the rest.. but it looks like this isn't going to work.

Heres why:
we have vbseo installed.. this in turn re-generates (for want of a better word) the keywords from the vb4 standard ones.. in this instance our 'default keywords' are blank in the options and the keywords are generated using text from the forum threads themselves.. at least this is my understanding.
I put some default keywords back in and see if any of the above solution(s) generated anythign and sure enough they do! Great, thank you.. but it doesnt contain the modified keywords.. so I'll just have to keep hunting and askin on vbseo forums too lol
thanks guys for help so far!
--------------- Added [DATE]1317392668[/DATE] at [TIME]1317392668[/TIME] ---------------
AMAZINGLY ... I cant even get the thread ID...
Hook: global_bootstrap_init_start
echo $GLOBALS['threadinfo']['threadid'];
echo $vbulletin->post['threadid'];
echo $vbulletin->threadinfo['threadid'];
echo $vbulletin->thread['threadid'];
echo $vbulletin->options['threadid'];
echo $vbulletin->newpost['threadid'];
echo $threadid;
echo $thread['threadid'];
NONE get results.. I cant fathom why they have made this so complicated..
--------------- Added [DATE]1317396932[/DATE] at [TIME]1317396932[/TIME] ---------------
ok ignore the above.. moved the hook location to 'showthread_start' and $threadid worked a treat.
getting close now