Hi Julie,
I have been interested/fascinated in this field for the last 5-6 years and studied a relevant subject in University. From what I have read, know and to answer your questions, here is my advice.
A beginner would be advised to stay well clear of creating their own portfolio in stocks even with the advice of a Financial analyst as most will produce meager results at best and conflicts of interest are common, recommending certain brokers etc. Take note that the majority of investors loose money over time, 20% will make money consistently and only a tiny percentage beat the market (bearing in mind these are full time investors) market being the FTSE in England or S&P 500 in the US depending on what the investors are benchmarking themselves against.
There is two things that someone who is new to investing can do that have effective results: Either invest in a low cost index fund tracker such as vanguard (the s&p 500 has produced around 11% on average per anum since 1964) If you are investing for at least a decade then its a really good option. If not then maybe invest in something like Joel Greenblats magic formula, this takes a lot more patients and knowledge, the guy also has a book on the idea which seemed to be written so that most teenagers could understand (not the best read in my opinion but a lot of very valuable information).
Unless you can find someone like Mohnish Pabrai in the UK who will be willing to invest your money through a partnership then my advice is to stick to index fund investing. Hedgefunds after fees are bad usually bad investments and most have a large minimum investment requirement.
If want do something that will produce good returns (anything over 10% per year on average over more than a decade) requires a steep learning curve. Personally I would start with value investing by reading all of Warren Buffetts shareholder letters from 1950 onwards, then move on to Benjamin Graham - The intelligent investor and Seth Klarmans Margin of Safety. Once you have read about 30 good books on the subject and a couple on interpreting financial statements then you could be a pretty good investor after maybe 3 years solid learning. To be a good investor pretty much requires you to work at it full time.
Best recent book I have read on the subject is Mohnish Pabrai - The Dhandho Investor.
Also check out a guy called Walter Schloss, it proves that one does not need to be a genius to be a good investor but it takes a hell of a lot of time to be knowledgeable enough to do so effectively.
Hope this doesn't sound condescending but investing in stocks is like betting on horses if you don't know what you are doing, and most who invest like this don't tend to talk about their losers too often.
My two cents
