HTML hell

Aaaargh. Ok I'm trying to set up a site with a table based layout and the firfox vs IE hassle has once again surfaced. I have it perfect in firefox but can I get it to layout right in IE? Can I ****! And can I understand what the problem is? Same answer!

I thought if you specified a table cell width it would stick to it, and in firefox it does, but in IE it doesn't. Happily the tea isn't going cold as I'm supping some stella but that isn't the issue. (And no I'm not so tipsy I've done some obscure piece of coding - the coding I did was a few days ago).

But what is the solution? Well I'll go and have a look and see if I can sort it. But at the same time I'm using the 2nd pc in the house and the monitor is playing up - although not sure if it is the monitor or the graphics card - it keeps flicking from normal size to a reduced size and it is annoying me.