Is buying individual U.K equities too risky?

Is buying individual U.K equities too risky at the moment? There has been bid action at Detica and Acambis, which has been very helpful. However, for large sectors of the British stock market such as banks and housebuilders where volatility has been very high and the movement has been down. It would have been very difficult to time when to buy Alliance and Leicester and then not to hang around for the Banco Santander paper.
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I wish my few stocks would go up a bit. I look at their prices in the paper and wish that I bought a tracker fund and then could stop worrying about equity investment.