It’s a long tradition in the build-up to the Football World Cup to procure a half-decent wallchart to adorn a bedroom wall or the back of the kitchen door. Once the tournament is under way, the results, goal scorers and group standings are ritually inserted in the spaces provided (at least until England make their usual exit in the quarter finals, after which it all seems a bit pointless). Traditionally, these are newspaper or magazine freebies or, more recently, digital promos to download and print.

This year, those clever people at Marca.com, the Spanish sports website, have created a fabulous Flash-based interactive calendar for the forthcoming tournament in South Africa. It’s available in both Spanish and English versions and can be viewed in glorious full-screen. I particularly like the cross-referencing by date, stadia, team and group / stage, and I assume it will be automatically updated as the matches take place.

I’ve started a private war on web pages and blogs with white / pale text on black / dark backgrounds. I’m sure the temporary blindness you get from jumping back to a ‘normal’ web page (i.e. one with a light background) is not healthy. Most times I come across one, I click straight out again, no matter how good the content is. I’d like a browser that forewarns me when I’m opening such a page, or better still one that automatically inverts the colours (wouldn’t that be cool!). In the right context, ‘light-on-dark’ design can be great – particularly on visual sites with little text – but in most cases, it is used indiscriminately and unnecessarily. Unless you’re a goth, I can’t think of many reasons why you should even consider it – it’s not good design, it does not promote web accessibility, and it’s not good for my health.