Just a short comment:
I hope the book "Teach yourself HTML 4 in 24 Hours" ISBN 0-672-31369-3 is available in the UK (There may well be a newer version). It's a simple cook-book, but has a reference section for the common HTML commands. I found it very useful.
Another point I don't think anyone mentioned is that you can examine the HMTL of any web site with most web browsers. Just click on "Page Source" under Views in Netscape or "Source" under Views in IE.
Steal the source of a site you like and modify its content to make it "you".
I don't use any of the HTML editors mentioned. For my simple site I found directly writing in HTML to be simple enough after the first hurdle. I hadn't realized I could examine the source of real sites at the time.
I keep IE5.5, Netscape 6.2 and Netscape 3 on my machine and test my site with all of them. I find it stupid that advertisers use features unique to the latest IE on their site. They are driving away potential customers.
And avoid loading your site with "dancing squirrels" and other cute animations.
SC