A festival for those who put sounds and culture above getting wasted. It’s about diversity, quality and comfort. Set in Adelaide’s Botanical Gardens, there are oodles of lush green space – it’s really quite delightful.

Sure there are still plenty of opportunities to dance around like a lunatic, but for the most part Womadelaide is populated by people of all ages there to appreciate some of the world’s finest music. Kind of like a Food & Wine Festival but for music, however there are plenty of decent stalls too.

So if you’re sick of the washed out sound, huge queues and masses of young ‘uns all striving for individuality in whatever hairstyle/singlet/jeans are popular that year, head to Womadelaide in 2013.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the highlights from 2012 (as pictured)

1 – Master Drummers of Burundi

Twenty hard-carved drums pounding out some complex rhythms, it’s as much about the presentation as the traditional music, as these identically dressed drummers leap around in perfect time creating quite the spectacle.

2 – Narasirato

More tribal music but with a big twist. Playing music that’s been used for communicating in the Are’are tradition for over 75 generations, it’s amazingly modern and surprisingly captivating. If some indie hipster band invented this, we’d all think they were geniuses. Luckily, this has a bit more creditability.

3 – Dirty Three

It’s the Dirty Three. If you don’t know who they are, find out. If you do know and you weren’t there at Womadelaide, I know you’re jealous.

4 – Holy Cow Chai Tent

So this is some of the food and wine stuff I was talking about. Doesn’t it just look lovely? The photographic trickery doesn’t hurt, but unlike so many festivals that programme the bands then forget that people actually enjoy nice food and drink, Womadelaide provide a real depth and range of yummy liquids and solids.

5 – Womadelaide Flags

It’s like the trademark right? Every year they’re used to break up the green space, and they never fall over. Really quite big and cool.

6 – Other Highlights (not pictured)

Music is for listening to, not writing about. So instead of me describing how these other acts sounded, search the ‘net and find out for yourself. It’ll be time well spent, I promise.

So in no particular order have a look for: Penguin Café (UK), Kimmo Pohjonen (Finland), The Bombay Royale (Australia), Mahala Rai Banda (Romania) and Frigg (Finland/Norway). There you go. Thanks for your time.

Here’s the website: womadelaide.com.au

Also there are Womad’s coming up in:

Wiltshire, UK

Bristol, UK

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

Palemro, Sicily

Taranaki, New Zealand

For details: www.womad.org

All photos by Natasha Worm

Here he is! Jordan Russell melting down.

Many in the media have stated in relation to the Jordan Russell naked tape, “There’s nothing funny about a nervous breakdown.” I disagree. Have you seen the video? It’s freaking hilarious.

Don’t feel bad about it either. It’s a naked man jumping around on a busy street corner. That’s funny. Not just any naked man either. This man has orchestrated one of the most successful social media campaigns. Ever.

While attention in the Kony 2012 campaign was still rising, a campaign which holds Mr Russell up as a moral crusader, he was jumping around naked. In public. If you made it up, nobody would believe you. It’s pure comedy gold.

Now let me explain why it’s okay to piss yourself. We laugh for many reasons. One of the biggest is watching someone hurt themselves. The classic man slipping on a banana peel. A cat slipping on anything. A fat man… moving

Put the banana peel man in an expensive suit. His fall is funnier. Make him a politician and cover him in manure. Hilarious, and that’s another big reason to laugh –taking down someone who’s high status.

Remember when you laugh at someone, you’re not saying that you don’t understand or respect them. You’re just saying something they did was funny. That’s it.

Laughter is also a magnificent coping mechanism. Once you can laugh at a misfortune, an accident, a tragedy or even a death, you’ve gone a long way to taking ownership of that situation and dealing with it.

Then if you’re the subject of the laughter, if you’re able to look at yourself and say, ‘Wow. That was stupid. It hurt. But it probably looked hilarious.’ Well people actually have more respect for you.

It works the other way as well. If you try to pretend something isn’t funny, when it blatantly is, the sniggering goes on behind your back. Then you look like more of a fool. Feeling bad for laughing at someone’s misfortune, when it’s funny, is political correctness gone mad.

So I watched the Kony 2012 video. It was over the top, but it seems like a lot of good work is happening, and the American troops are now over there, helping to catch the bad guy.

Next Mr Russell wants to cover the US with posters on some day in April. To convince the government to do nothing else, because they’re already doing what he wants. So it’s a bit stupid, but whatever. When this Kony is finally caught, that will be awesome.

Another reason this is funny isn’t so innocent. Mr Russell used social media to get his message out there. That video was very carefully designed to appeal to Facebook and YouTube users. It directly referenced them, and he exploited his own son to increase people’s emotional investment.

It was clever and it worked, and his cause became one of the biggest social media phenomenons ever, where so many other organizations have failed. Mr Russell wanted to make Joseph Kony into a celebrity, and he understood that in order to be successful, he had to make himself into a celebrity as well.

Then the exact same social media outlets that he manipulated for his cause went crazy over his naked leaping around. The tools he used to make his cause famous turned on him and made him infamous. That’s classic irony. A more subtle form of humour, but still very funny.

Here’s a link to a video: Jordan Russell Meltdown YES

Today’s World Water Day. Don’t worry, I didn’t know either. Well obviously I know now because I’m writing about it, but it was only after I read a Facebook Update that pointed out the differences between it and ‘Waterworld’.

That shocking Kevin Costner film set in a post-apocalyptic future where everyone had a great tan, was really attractive, wore only rags and owned a boat. Pretty much like an America’s Cup where everyone’s involved and the prize is food.

Since most of Australia is currently underwater, or at least nice and moist (sorry girls, I know you hate that word) it’s easy to forget that the past decade in this country was the driest on record.

Talkback radio hosts and other assorted idiots are calling for work to stop on desalination plants because our dams are full right now, which seems a little silly. That’s like going to the supermarket after a big meal and not buying anything, because you’re not hungry. Or tearing up a winning lottery ticket, because this week, you can cover the rent.

Australian tap water is also some of the purest. Except in Adelaide where the water is some brown gritty substance that’s great for scouring pots, but tastes horrible.

In this country we refuse to drink recycled water, that’s water which has been through someone else, not because the technology isn’t there to make it safe and clean, but because it just sounds gross. Who wants to drink someone else’s pee? Well, Bear Grylls does, but he’s an idiot.

Several countries do use recycled water, and soon in Australia we won’t have a choice, and watch how fast the whining stops when it’s either recycled water, or no water.

Being concerned over the origin or water that’s completely fine to drink is such a first world problem. It’s up there with having to be content with soy milk in your coffee, because the café’s out of rice milk. Or having to use a public toilet, or waiting five minutes to be served at a sushi bar. Try it, feels like for-ev-er.

Worldwide drought is still the single most common cause of severe food shortages in developing countries. It caused more deaths during the last century than any other natural disaster. Those with access to water also tend to have lower levels of undernourishment.

Each year World Water Day has a different theme, this year it’s food security. As the population continues to rise, and climate change reduces rainfall in some areas, it’s worth considering how much water is used to produce our food.

For example, it takes about 1500 litres to produce one kilo of wheat, but 15,000 litres to produce one kilo of beef.  Should we all become vegetarians? Or course not, meat is delicious, but in the future we might not have a choice. Boo.

For more information on World Water Day: www.unwater.org