[88mph]

for some reason, a background colour to a my contentContainer div doesn't do anything

I'm pretty new to this, and it's prob something daft, but i am really struggling!!

Do something good today, help an idiot!!

www.mydinnerparty.co.uk/downloads/archive.zip <--source

(please ignore hideousness of site at present, it will be pretty when finished, promise!)

[Dusteh]

Your absolute positioning of all the child elements means it doesn't think it has a width or height.

[88mph]

okay, so how should i work it, use floats?

[Dusteh]

yes you could do that.

I recommend having a look at some existing css templates out there, and get a feel for how they handle the content; this is a good start: Content with Style: A CSS Framework