don't mind me. I was being stupid. My mouse map tga file wasn't the right size before so the alpha wasn't working. I noticed it had to be 32x32 pixels. I just added the space around the pointer without moving the pointer to the top left of the image.
oops.
thanks for the reply though, I think you mentioning the mouse spot got me thinking about it being in the default position and where that actually was in my image.