What's wrong with AAs?
I have the Pentax K-x. I'm surprised it won this after the less than enthusiastic review, but it is good camera. It's worth noting it will work with every Pentax lens ever made, including old manual primes that are available second hand very cheap, and it gives them all image stabilisation. It's low light performance is outstanding.
I don't get why everyone hates AA batteries so much - AA is part of the reason I picked it. It can run on cheap and widely-available alkalines in a pinch, or lithium AAs if you need the long life and low temperature performance. Most of the time I use Eneloops which perform well and have low self-discharge. There's a big advantage to using a standard format. I have other kit which also uses AAs and shares the same charger. Lithium-ion batteries are proprietary, which makes it expensive to carry many spares. All batteries have a finite life, Li-ion are usually reckoned at 3-5 years and then you are at the mercy of the manufacturer if you want to replace it.
Pentax have just announced the K-r, which is the upgrade to the K-x and uses Li-ion by default with an AA option.
The 18-55mm kit lens is good, and you can also get the K-x bundled with a second kit lens of 55-300mm which is very good. It probably puts it out of the price range of this group, but is very good value if you want a telephoto; you can't do better without spending another £800 or more. Alternatively, the Tamron 18-250mm is pretty good as a superzoom if you don't want to be faffing about with changing lenses.