Rainbow Serpent Nights!!

This was the end of one of the best days I have had in a long time. Thanks to everyone who made my experience at Rainbow Serpent festival so much fun. I had a fantastic time and value the new friendships that I made and hope to see you all soon.

Rainbow Serpent Festival & The Nargile Lounge

Whilst in Melbourne friends and I spent almost a week at a festival called Rainbow Serpent. It was held in the bush near Beaufort and Ballarat about 2 hours outside of Melbourne. There were lots of DJ's and a few live acts as well as various performers and entertainers too.

I was part of a group that went and set up a gift economy space called the Nargile Lounge. A lot of the organisers were Burning Man people and this is a concept that is very common at Burning Man festivals around the world. I haver never been a part of something like this though and so was not sure what to expect.


The aim of the Nargile Lounge was to provide a free space for people to come and enjoy and hang out in. Nargile or Nargila as it's pronounced are hookah pipes, or hubbly bubbly pipes as I call them. We had several of these for people to smoke as well as given out peppermint tea and various snacks like dried fruit, nuts and turkish delight.

It was amazing to see how much people appreciated the space and were so grateful for the chance to enjoy the tent with us. It made me feel really great to be a part of the team and to be offering people this experience.


The festival was awesome. Some great music was played and I was often found dancing away till the sun rose each morning. There was a huge mix of people at the festival and all seemed to be enjoying their experiences.

It's been a long time since I went to a good festival and so was great to let my hair down and enjoy every aspect of it and meet some fantastic people along the way.

Chicago Schmago

I went to see the musical Chicago at the theatre royal in Christchurch last night. All I can say is thank god I didn't pay for the ticket!

I would have done a runner at half time had I not been sat in front of my boss and next to the lady that organised it for us all!

I managed to keep myself amused with my colleagues binoculars - yes we were in the gods so you could discover many interesting things through the lens of the binoculars!!

So here are a few binocular observations:

On close inspection Velma was played by a lady who was let's say, not a spring chicken!! Her dancing was stilted - I was unsure whether it was the onset of arthritis or whether she was just a crap dancer!! Said woman also was either wearing dentures or had had her teeth fixed not so long ago!! You could hear the lisp thing when she sang!

Roxy - although a young and fairly good singer/dancer was almost as annoying as Renee Zellweger in the film version. Although she did get better towards the end of the musical. (And didn't look like the pasty white, anorexic box that Renee did in the film!!)

Amos (Roxy's husband) was in fact almost old enough to be her father!! He was an excellent actor though and I think was possibly the best out of all of them - great comedy timing. However I was still a little disturbed about the thought of them being husband and wife!

Billy Flynn (Roxy & Velma's attorney) was way too nicey nice!! He didn't have a hard enough edge to him to be taken seriously. More dapper friendly neighbour next door than dapper hard nosed attorney at law!!

Mary Sunshine was fantastic (the news reporter) - was actually a guy though (this is the point when the binoculars first came out cos I was trying to see if it was a guy or not!!) The operatic singing was good though and his comedy timing was fab!! Most amusing character!!

The guy that played Fred Casely was hot!! He was also a dancer for the rest of the production and was generally looking at him when whatever else was happening was invariably boring me - although the binoculars weren't out in time for the first scene when he got his butt out!! However, in one of the final scenes he did come out in a one piece leotard so he instantly lost his sex appeal - and although in the final scene was in a suit - I couldn't forget the image of the all in one white and red stripped leotard!!

So I don't know the names of the actual actors because I was not about to shell out $20 on a programme to find out!!