Creating different page templates without sidebars - (possible permalinks issue)

Hi,

I am trying to create pages with options for a full with centre column, or simply one column.

I found a post that explains you can do this by
Plan A) creating a copy of the index.php file with a different choice of column options (but the detail was out of date in one forum post and referred to the gold section in another forum post)

or

Plan B) using APO>CSS inserts

So when I try to use the APO>addCSS inserts, something like...

body.page-id-27 #header {display: none;}
body.page-id-27 #footer {display: none;}

...I came unstuck because my pages are not "permalinked" as page=27 but as
http://www.website.com/blog/blog-tit...-between-words.

So I can't refer to page 27 but have to use page names. However this (For the page "About" looks like this and has no effect.

body.page-id-about #header {display: none;}
body.page-id-about #footer {display: none;}

(Yes I know this is to remove the header and footer but that does not work either)

Is it actually possible to create pages that are full width with a full width centre column, and eliminate side columns?

Can the centre column on alternative template pages be a different width to the one defined in the main index.php?

Am I missing a trick here - and if so - what is it?

Many thanks