Control over DNS records for self-hosted web-site

Hi all

Excuse if you have read this before, I recently posted it in a thread before I realised the thread was quite old, so I thought I might be better starting a new thread instead.

I recently finished building a web server, that now hosts a site for the family firm, which has been interesting for me because I wanted to go through the whole process of setting up the server, aswell as developing the web application - all the web traffic gets redirected from the ISP down our broadband line. There's plenty of overhead still available on the server, so I was thinking I would like to set up my own personal site with its own URL, on the same machine. I was wondering how common it is to register a domain name with a registrar, and for them to give you control of a DNS record on their name server. I only have one external IP address, but I believe I could set up the server to use host headers to differentiate the web requests. If I have a control over the DNS record, presumably I could direct all traffic for the new URL to the existing external IP address.

I'm based in the UK. Does anybody have any recommendations of a name registrar that would allow me to configure a DNS record in this way, or is this just the normal process that I should expect from a reputable registrar? Also, is there any great advantage to using a registration service based in 'rip-off Britain', given that the costs in the US seem to be cheaper?

If anybody can recommend a good way forward, I would be enormously grateful!

Thanks very much!

Regards