altering the default home page via .htaccess

Hi

I would like the index page to redirect to one of my permanent pages of my blog/site.

If I understand things correctly (which is doubtful!). I can add an htaccess file to redirect and make my default homepage something other than /index.html.

I have tried but its not working.

I suppose I need to know

Does this work with WP2 (I a using the K2 theme)
If it does which directory do need to place the htacess file (in the appropriate /themes directory?)
And what is the appropriate syntax

Any ideas, experience of tackling this or alternative approaches?