Sarbi and her handler, Sergeant D, in January 2011.

The Australian Army’s most famous hound, Sarbi, retired from active service on Monday after six years of sniffing out dangerous bombs and weapons and saving countless lives.

Sarbi, who turned nine on September 11, retired as an explosives detection dog to live with her handler, Sergeant D, and his fiancé at their Sydney home.

She joins the experienced handler’s other dog, Vegas, who retired from her job as an EDD in 2005, and their cat.

“She’s settled in well. Vegas didn’t even bat an eyelid. She thinks it’s great that this new dog goes and gets the ball and drops it within easy reach for her to pick up,” Sgt D tells me via email.

The household cat, though, is another matter!

Sergeant D returned to Australia in early December after his fourth deployment to Afghanistan as an EDD handler since 2007 and was eager to lead Sarbi into her new life as a household pet.

The ball-mad black Newfoundland-Labrador retriever cross was twice deployed to Afghanistan with Sgt D – as he is known for operational security reasons – to sniff out improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and a range of other deadly weapons and bomb-making equipment.

She is the star of my fourth book, Saving Private Sarbi, The True Story of Australia’s Canine War Hero, which was published in October by Allen and Unwin and launched (see page 11 in Army, The Soldier’s Newspaper) by the former Chief of Army, Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie who told me earlier this year he wouldn’t be sending Sarbi back to a war zone. 

The book is now in its third printing.

Sarbi went missing in action after the joint Australian, Afghan and U.S. patrol on which she was working was ambushed by the Taliban on September 2, 2008. It was the same fire-fight in which SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson was later awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross for courage under fire for rescuing a seriously wounded Afghan interpreter.

Sarbi was taken by the Taliban as a prize of war and kept for nearly 14 months before she was ‘dognapped’ in a deal brokered by a local malek (trusted Afghan elder) and a US Special Forces soldier in Uruzgan Province and returned to the Australian Army based at Tarin Kot.

After several months in quarantine in Dubai, she finally made her way back to Australia last December and has spent all of 2011 training new EDD handlers at the School of Military Engineering at Holsworthy on the outskirts of Sydney.

She was also awarded the RSPCA’s prestigious Purple Cross for services to humans becoming only the second military animal to receive the top honour after Simpon’s donkey Murphy, who helped ferry wounded men from battle in Gallipoli. Sarbi has also received campaign medals for her two deployments to Afghanistan.

She deserves her retirement.

In dogs we trust.

A member of the Australian Defence Force taking a breather in the Middle East with a gift donated by Vogue magazine for ANZAC Day care packages

Earlier  this year I sent out a call to my mates in the media asking if they would like to contribute to my inaugural ANZAC Day care package drive for our 3000 soldiers, sailors and airmen and women currently deployed overseas in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Everyone jumped at the opportunity and donated magazines and books and even some treats and toys for the dogs of the Explosive Detection Dog Section, the highly-trained hounds who are saving lives in Uruzgan Province by sniffing out dangerous improvised explosive devices and roadside bombs – the Taliban’s weapons of choice.

The editor of That’s Life! magazine, Linda Smith, donated dozens and dozens of puzzle books that kept the Australian Defence Force personnel in crosswords and Sudoku for months.

Lizzie Renkert, Jackie Frank and Kirstie Clements – the stylish editors of fashion magazines, Madison, marie claire and Vogue donated the latest editions of their glossy monthlies, as did top bloke Stephen Corby, the editor of the top-selling Top Gear magazine.

Helen McCabe, who helms The Australian Women’s Weekly and her team contributed several boxes of magazines and puzzle books, as did Felicity Harley from Women’s Health. GQ did its bit – obviously for the more stylish soldier!

The Australian book publisher of the year, Allen and Unwin, (who also publish my latest book, Saving Private Sarbi, donated a pile of books a metre high, as did my literary agent,  Selwa Anthony.

I have received some of the most moving letters from soldiers in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Sollies expressing how much it means to them that the Australian public is thinking of them, supporting them and grateful for their service overseas. We thank them for making huge sacrifices by being away from home for months at a time, particularly at important times of the year such as ANZAC Day and Christmas.

Here’s a selection of their comments.

Phil, Warrant Officer Class Two in Afghanistan:

“You would be surprised at how much a boost it gives each and everyone of us to receive mail and gifts from home. We are currently very busy here as this is the peak time of year for the Taliban due to the good weather (they don’t like to be out and about in the cold weather), but that said, we will always have time for a good read and you can be sure the magazines and books will get read from cover to cover and many times over.”

Some of the sailors with their ANZAC Day care package treats donated by my media mates

And this, from Able Seaman Julie;

“I’m emailing as I was the lucky recipient of one of your ANZAC Day Packages. Thank you very much, it was much appreciated! Both myself and the other girls were glad to receive some feminine reading material. It was also humbling to know that people appreciate our work over here.”

This one in particularly poignant and moving, from a female RAAFie, Middle East:

“Thank you so much for your package. We appreciate it. Everyone had a flick through them, I even found the boys reading the Women’s Health mag I especially loved the girly ones as they were a reminder of all the fashion, makeup and girly things back home I am missing out on!

“As I am only young, I know I haven’t had a great deal of experience in many jobs, but from what I have seen over here, I doubt you would find this sort of support in any other organisation, my experience here has allowed me to see this, and definitely makes me proud of being part of it. Let me set the scene for you……

“Its 9pm, I have no idea what day it is because you lose track of what day is which. We had plenty of work on the planes as the major maintenance team had a long 12 hour shift ahead to get them fixed to fly at 6am the following morning. If all went well, we would have one fixed and good to continue with missions over Afghanistan. Normally up our end of the tarmac it’s pretty empty and apart from the firies, not many people around. Tonight, there is a large gathering of Army personnel  just waiting. About an hour later, a C17 lands. This is nothing unusual, there are planes coming and going 24 hours a day here, but then something out of the ordinary happened. The C17 shut down its engines, and the group of Army personnel started to move towards the aircraft.

“It’s now almost 11pm, the temperature is about 38 degrees and more humid than Darwin. The Army have all grouped quietly around the edge of the tarmac and begun practicing for the Repat Ceremony the following day. This had to be the most respectful thing I have ever witnessed. For hours, the group of Army boys marched around stood at attention, carried out drill until it was nothing but 150% perfect. Never have I witnessed such a sense of honour and brotherhood among a group of Military personnel.

“I was more amazed and proud of the way in which that soldier was being escorted home. What was important was that the body of our fallen soldier would be returned home respectfully. Our fallen soldier would return home a hero, he would return home in the most honourable and respectful way. It was at that point that I realised how proud I am to be part of the Australian Defence Force, and it is such a comforting feeling to know that if anything were to happen to me, no matter where I was, or what I was doing, I would not just be forgotten about, I would be returned home to my loved ones honourably, and they would be offered all the care and support they needed during that time.”

Now that’s something to think about.

A loyal mutt guards the piles of ANZAC Day care packages to be sent to her hero-hounds from the Explosive Dog Detection Section

As the festive season approaches, the same generous editors and publishers have come to the party again for the Christmas Day care package drive, and this time the talented writer Tara Moss has sent a pile of her books, as did prolific authors Sue Williams and Jimmy Thomson and broadcaster and all-round great girl, Libbi Gorr. Men’s Health have sent copies of their mags for the boys in uniform, and Harper Collins (who published my book about an SAS war hero in Afghanistan, 18 Hours) have donated a stack of books.

One of my favourite Australian singers, David Campbell, has donated a couple of signed copies of his newest CD, Let’s Go, which was released this week. And super prolific Aussie author, sports commentator and all-round good bloke, Peter FitzSimons delivered 10 signed copies of his best-sellers.

Another great friend, Alex Olsson, has also donated a pile of her absolutely glorious body products from her OP Therapy range for our female soldiers. And Australia’s best columnist, Miranda Devine from The Daily Telegraph and Melbourne’s  Herald Sun – the biggest selling daily newspaper in the country – donated two huge boxes of lollies as a Christmas treat.

The Christmas Day care packages will be sent in early December to make it to the troops who will receive them at random on Christmas Day. It’s the least we could do to let them know we are thinking of them at this special time of year.

For more information about how you can thank our brave men and women of the Australian Defence Force, visit the ADF website or go here to the direct link.

Lest we forget.

UPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of all of the above, we managed to send 205 individual Christmas Day care packages to our soldiers, sailors and airmen and women serving in Afghanistan, East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Explosive Detection Dog Sarbi, in her custom-made red jacket to denote the EDD Section, at the launch of the new book, Saving Private Sarbi (picture Laura Robins)

The former top dog of the Australian Army launched my new book, Saving Private Sarbi, The True Story of Australia’s Canine War Hero, this week with a moving speech in which he highlighted the unbreakable bond between the explosive detection dogs and their handlers.

In a distinguished event at Victoria Barracks in Sydney’s Paddington, Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie, AC, DSC, CSM (ret) introduced the four-legged hero, Sarbi, saying the highly-trained EDD and her canine counterparts were unrivalled in their ability to protect soldiers from the lethal roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices, the enemy’s weapon of choice in Afghanistan.

No technology had yet been developed that could do what the EDDs do on a daily basis – putting their four paws on the line every time they went to work sniffing out IEDs, LtGen Gillespie said.

Sarbi, who turned nine years old on September 11, was a divine doggie diva as she sat politely on the podium while the General extolled her virtues in front of 70 invited guests from the media, military and mutt worlds.

She even signed an exclusive series of the book by dipping her front right paw in non-toxic ink (vegetable dye). Six limited edition, numbered copies of Saving Private Sarbi pawed by Sarbi and signed by me will be auctioned for Legacy and the Australian Institute for Deaf and Blind Children in the coming year.

Sarbi’s handler, Sergeant D, was unable to attend the launch as he is on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan. His identity is protected – for operational security reasons. He joined the army in 1995 and became a dog handler in 2000.

Among the guests at the launch were several officers and members of the Australian Army family including the wife of  Major General Mick Slater, the officer who recently returned from leading the Queensland floods recovery.

Royal Australian Navy specialist clearance diver, Paul de Gelder, attended, as did one of the original ‘tunnel rats’ from the Vietnam War, Sandy MacGregor.

Well known media identities included Miranda Devine and Piers Akerman from News Limited, Janine Perrett from SkyBusiness, radio and television commentator Melissa Hoyer , gun reporter Kate McClymont from The Sydney Morning Herald, as well as one of the stars of Good News World, Mikey Robins. Fellow authors Caroline Overington (also of The Australian), Sue Williams, Lynne Cossar and Jimmy Thomson were also in attendance.

EDD Sarbi signs a limited edition paw-print for her book, Saving Private Sarbi (picture Sandra Lee)

Some background.

Sarbi and Sgt D have been a team since Sarbi joined the Army in 2005.

Sergeant D was Sarbi’s original trainer and has been her only operational handler.

Sarbi and Sgt D were part of the extensive security team for the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and in 2007 were on their first deployment to Afghanistan, where they distinguished themselves with some serious ‘finds’ of enemy weapons and bombs and bomb-making material.

In 2008, Sarbi and Sergeant D were deployed to Uruzgan a second time.

On September 2, they were on patrol in the remote region of Khas Uruzgan.

Sgt D was with 11 troopers from the elite Australian Special Air Service Regiment, about a dozen battle-hardened men from the United States Special Forces, and a team of soldiers from the Afghan National Army.

The Special Forces patrol had one mission: to remove the Taliban from the region.

In the previous 24 hours, they had done a pretty good job of it. En route to base after a successful operation, they were ambushed by up to 100 Taliban fighters hidden in well-fortified positions.

So began a four-hour, do-or-die battle in which nine of the 12 Aussies were wounded, including Sergeant D. Three had life threatening injuries.

Sergeant D’s American counterpart, a dog handler by the name of Sergeant Gregory Rodriguez, was killed in the ambush. Several Afghan soldiers were also wounded. An Afghan interpreter was blown off the back of a US Humvee with Sergeant D and sustained near fatal wounds.

As Lt General Gillespie pointed out at the launch on Wednesday, SAS Trooper Mark Donaldson, distinguished himself during the battle by running into the line of fire several times to help draw fire away from his mates, and to rescue the wounded Afghan interpreter. For these heroic actions, he was later awarded the prestigious Victoria Cross.

Another soldier was awarded the Medal For Gallantry for his actions.

Like her handler, Sarbi was also wounded in the ambush when a razor sharp piece of shrapnel from a rocket propelled grenade sheered through the carabiner’s clip that fastened her to Sgt D. At the end the firefight, she went missing in action, lost in the Afghanistan countryside for the next 13 months.

LtGen Gillespie launches Saving Private Sarbi, with the hound in red beside him

A lot of people wonder about the bond between handler and hound in the Army, but as Lt General Gillespie said at the launch, that connection can never be underestimated.

Many in the audience – including me – fought back tears as the General told of meeting Sergeant D in a field hospital at Tarin Kot the day after the ambush. He was at one end of a ward with seven other wounded Diggers, all lying across from each other, toe to toe.

Lt General Gillespie moved through the ward checking on each of the wounded soldiers and finally came to Sergeant D. The General said he was shocked by the soldier’s face.

“It was almost completely pockmarked,” he said.

Sgt D had also been sliced with shrapnel and razor sharp metal fragmentation from rocket propelled grenades. The only parts of his face unmarked were around his eyes where protective glasses had prevented certain blindness. His legs, torso and arms were also wounded.

To get an idea of how bad he looked, it’s worth noting that during interviews for my book, Sgt D told me that as the convoy of five Humvees roared back to their remote Fire Base Anaconda, he tried to stop a fellow Australian with more serious wounds falling unconscious. The Digger kept closing his eyes, and Sgt D feared if he lost consciousness, he might die.

In the hospital the next day, the soldier told Sgt D he was never in danger of slipping into unconsciousness when he closed his eyes.

“He just didn’t want to look at me because my face was so cut up and looked pretty horrible. I didn’t know how bad it was,” Sgt D told me.

That was the face looking up at LtGen Gillespie. The General asked Sgt D what he had done and who he was.

“I’m the dog handler, Sir.”

As Sgt D explained that Sarbi had gone MIA towards the end of the battle, the veteran soldier choked up and couldn’t finish his sentence. The other seven wounded men all turned their heads away, out of respect and because they were, as the General said, equally distraught by the loss of their four-legged warrior.

It was a telling – and extraordinarily moving – part of the General’s speech

The bond between the explosive detection dogs and their handlers is unbreakable, and the dogs also are a shot of morale for the men and women they work with and around in Afghanistan. It’s no wonder the men in the hospital ward with Sergeant D had to turn away as he did his best to explain what happened.

Animals – especially dogs, and more particularly working dogs on whom we humans rely for so many things – have the incredible ability to lift our spirits; they have the power to transform us humans into something better than we are; to teach us compassion and kindness, and the rewards of unbidden loyalty.

In a way, the ability of the explosive detection dogs to foster a sense of camaraderie and kinship with their two-legged compatriots is unrivalled. It’s why the Special Forces soldiers never gave up on Sarbi and kept an eye out for her every time they went out on patrol. It’s why they finally got her back – in one piece, if a little fatter!

Sarbi was a dog, but she was one of them – an Australian Digger. They never get left behind.

Sarbi finally returned to Australia in December last year and is now back at work at the School of Military Engineering in Holsworthy, training new dog handlers.

She will retire when Sgt D returns from his current deployment to Afghanistan and live out the rest of her days as a pampered pooch, with another retired explosives detection dog, Vegas.

You can buy the book online at any number of sites, or by starting at Allen and Unwin’s homepage here. Saving Private Sarbi is also available in eBook format.

Mia Freedman about to debut in her own talk show on Sky News (picture Max Doyle, Fairfax)

With the success of Channel Ten’s female chat fest The Circle, it comes as no surprise that Sky News is getting in on the action with the post-Easter debut of a new female-friendly show hosted by Sydney journalist and regular Sky guest, Mia Freedman.

Freedman and Sky insiders are being tight-lipped about the show that could challenge Ten’s new ratings juggernaut and popular newcomer Chrissie Swan, who is up for three Logies.

Or it might find its way to an evening time-slot amid the highly respected political shows PM Agenda followed by The Nation With [political heavyhitter] David Speers and Paul Murray Live, helmed by the multi-talented  2UE drive-timebroadcaster.

Sky recently boosted its political credentials by giving Helen Dalley and Graham Richardson shows in the evening timeslot, and it ran a NSW-election special called So You Want To Be A Politician.

Freedman refused to confirm her imminent debut when I asked her via Twitter yesterday, saying only; “So many rumours”. However, I can report the show will involve a revolving panel of guests from the familiar worlds of fashion, media and celebrity, in which she has a slew of mates and contacts, mirroring her spectacularly popular blog, MamaMia. Politicos also have been approached to appear.

News of the Freedman experiment follows speculation in the Media column in The Australian earlier this year that Sky news boss Angelo Frangopoulos was considering giving her a talk show. It also follows the short-lived effort by Sky to launch 2GB superstar broadcaster Ray Hadley in the evenings. Experiments, however, don’t always work. Hadley quit after four episodes including one in which a young woman appeared in a bikini and boxing gloves (don’t ask), reportedly upsetting some of serious players at the station.

The only questions remaining for the Freedman TV trial are: what time-slot will it get and what will it be called? If the show lands in the hard-hitting political nightly line-up the title Mama Mia might not be a perfect fit, though I suspect it would work if the show goes into day-time.

Freedman was a successful magazine editor at ACP Magazines before a brief and unsuccessful stint at Channel Nine with the ill-fated, all-female day-time show, The Catch-Up (based on the US show, The View). It was boned after four months of low ratings.

She is a mother of three and successful pop culture commentator, author and Fairfax columnist, proving that some women can have it all. At once. Eventually.

C.D.B. Bryan's first non-fiction book, Friendly Fire

The literary world lost a true legend this week with the death of critically acclaimed author and journalist, Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan, the author of Friendly Fire, one of the most seminal books about the Vietnam War.

Better known as C.D.B Bryan, the author died at his home in Connecticut on the east coast of the United States on Tuesday with his adored wife, Mairi Bryan, by his side.

Bryan, who has two children from his first marriage and one from his second, had been battling cancer. He was 73.

His loss is enormous both professionally and personally.

Courtlandt was a mentor to many younger authors – including myself. He generously offered incredible support, encouragement and wisdom particularly to first-time writers.

When I began work on my first book, Beyond Bad, The Life and Crimes of Katherine Knight, I visited Bryan at his home in Guilford, CT, and asked the obvious: how do you do it?

I’ll never forget what he said, in his fabulous east-coast accent that would have been at home in Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. “Simple, shoulders forward, eyes down, type. Oh, and if you get stuck, a martini at midday helps.”

Months later we corresponded about the art of writing; about structure, tone, intent and narrative.

“The book you write is never the book your first draft turns out to be,” he wrote to me. “Just get the words down and worry about polishing later.  The art is in the artlessness, in making it look easy and inevitable and, as Salinger said, ‘You just sit down and write the book you would most like to read yourself.  Dare to do it. Trust your heart,’ etc.”

Harper Prize winning book, P.S. Wilkinson, written by the late C.D.B. Bryan

He spoke from the experience of having written at least 10 books and scores of magazine articles.

Despite his impressive body of work, it is Friendly Fire for which he is best known. Compelling and insightful, it has been repeatedly cited in professional military studies.

Bryan, who had served in the US Army in the peacetime occupation of Korea from 1958-1960, and again in the Berlin Crisis of 1961, focused on the death of Corporal Michael Mullen in Vietnam in 1970 and the subsequent radicalisation of his all-American farmer parents, Gene and Peg, who became vociferous anti-war protestors in their home state of Iowa.

Corporal Mullen was a draftee and killed by American artillery shelling, aka friendly fire, which is anything but.

The book is an aching report about the loss of a child that could have been avoided and the impact of his death on his parents, both of whom lose their faith in their country and it’s leaders and don’t believe their son’s death was accidental.

Friendly Fire began as a feature article for The New Yorker magazine, then under the editorship of legendary William Shawn, but by the time Bryan had finished interviewing the Mullen family and many of Michael Mullen’s fellow soldiers – including the yet-to-be famous General (Stormin’) Norman Schwarzkopf, he decided to extend the single article into a three-part series and finally a book.

The best-selling book was critically acclaimed and turned into an award-winning television film starring Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty as Mullens’ parents, and Sam Waterston (from Law and Order fame) as Bryan. Not for nothing did it win six Emmy Awards.

Actor Sam Waterston from Law and Order fame, who played C.D.B. Bryan in the telemovie based on his book, Friendly Fire

Bryan, a Yale University graduate and the stepson of writer John O’Hara, was also an accomplished novelist and his first fictional work, P.S. Wilkinson, won the prestigious Harper Prize in 1965. A later novel, Beautiful Women; Ugly Scenes is one of the most astute – and painful – books about a marriage that is failing only to end in a bitter divorce.

A skilled writer, he could turn his hand to any subject – fictional and non-fiction. He wrote Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: Alien Abduction, UFOs and the Conference at M.I.T; The National Air and Space Museum and The National Geographic Society: 100 Years of Adventure and Discovery. As well, he wrote for various magazines.

Cover of Beautiful Women, Ugly Scenes by author C.D.B. Bryan

And there was so much more to Bryan beyond the pages.

A bon vivant of the highest order, he had wit, charm and effortless style. He was a native storyteller and brilliant raconteur who used satire and wit in equal measure and like his wife, Mairi, could be counted on to be an engaging dinner companion.

I last saw Courtlandt on New Year’s day two years ago after the Bryans threw another of their renowned parties to welcome the arrival of 2007. He smoked, drank and cursed in equal abandon and, despite not being in great health, was in great spirits.

I’m told he was drinking his beloved martini shortly before he died.

He will be sorely missed, and always remembered.

Vale, Courtlandt Dixon Barnes Bryan.

My sincere condolences to Mairi and family.

Joel Edgerton and Cate Blanchett in the New York production of A Streetcar Named Desire (picture Sara Krulwich, The New York Times)

Sydney actor Joel Edgerton is on fire – and so is Cate Blanchett, but we already knew that.

The New York Times theatre critic Ben Brantley has just anointed him for his “excellent” performance alongside massively praised Cate Blanchett in the Tennessee Williams epic, A Streetcar Named Desire.

(The play was universally applauded by critics, including John McCallum in The Australian, when it premiered at The Sydney Theatre Company in September).

And his next film, Animal Kingdom, is the only Australian movie chosen to screen at the prestigious 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it will make its world premiere.

Only 14 films were selected for the “world cinema narrative competition” from a staggering 1022 entries.

Not bad going, and great kudos for the Australian film industry.

Animal Kingdom was written and directed by David Michod and filmed on location in Melbourne during a tight seven-week shoot earlier this year. It stars a string of exceptional Australian actors including Melbourne-based Guy Pearce, Ben Mendelsohn and the indefatigable Jacki Weaver.

According to a report by InsideFilm.com.au earlier this year, Animal Kingdom is a “taut thriller set amid the explosive world of a family addicted to crime, as experienced through the eyes of a naïve 17-year-old youth who enters their lair. It’s the Wild West where criminals and police wage their war on the city’s streets, while the innocent suffer the consequences.”

Animal Kingdom film poster

With Edgerton and Pearce (he plays a cop) in the same film, it will be cheekbones at 10-paces.

Edgerton’s career has been on the rise in recent years (even Blanchett forgave him for throwing a prop-telephone at her during a Streetcar performance at the STC recently) and Brantley’s glowing review of his Stanley Kowalksi (originally shaped by the great – in every sense – and late Marlon Brando) has got to be among the highlights.

“Mr Edgerton brings out the childlike side of Stanley, both its simple joyousness and thoughtlessness, and it has rarely been clearer that Stella’s husband has the winning strength of youth,” Brantley wrote.

The late newspaperman Frank Devine, author of Older and Wiser, at The Australian in Sydney

The brains trust at Sydney production company Zapruder’s Other Films know when they’re on to a good thing which is why Andrew Denton and his right-hand-woman Anita Jacoby are in the middle of finishing another series of their top-rated Elders series for the ABC.

The first series of the show, itself a spin-off from Denton’s much missed Enough Rope, featured fascinating, in-depth interviews with members of our superannuated generation – all of whom still have much to offer and are offering it.

Denton and Jacoby, to their credit, realised that there were plenty more people to mine for knowledge and experience – some of it good, some of bad, but all of interesting.

Which brings me to my point: Frank Devine’s posthumously published prince of a book called Older and Wiser that will hit bookstores tomorrow.

The book is a collection of Devine’s essays from 2002 to 2009 originally published in Quadrant magazine after he retired “as a day labourer at the age of 70” from The Australian newspaper where he had previously been editor.

His intention was to examine getting old but after five years of writing his columns he realised he’d been “goofing off” and writing about everything but. Well almost. Devine’s facility with language ranks among the very best and his essays are sensible, endearing, charming, enlightening, clever, provocative and laugh-out-loud funny in equal measure.

Australia has a peculiar notion about age and retirement. Unlike many European and Asian nations, we don’t revere our elders or take from them the infinite wisdom they possess about life and living. They’ve been there, done that, which is why we should appreciate it. Yet, somehow, we don’t.

Remember the push to have former Prime Minister John Howard retire at 64 – as if 64 was the intellectual use-by date for employment? Whatever you think of his politics, there is no denying Howard was still as vigorous as a 44 or even 34-year-old. Not for nothing is he currently working on his memoir while travelling the world at the invitation of various heads of government and businesses that wisely seek his counsel on all manner of things.

So back to Devine and Older and Wiser. As an example of his acute insight and wit (and that of a grandson) take the following extract from an essay called Two Degrees of Separation about being a grandparent (he was that six times over – one granddaughter and five grandsons).

Frank Devine's new book, Older and Wiser

“It’s a mistake for grandparents to get ideas above our station. This was made clear to me when, in the temporary and unavoidable absence of his parents, I took a grandson from the rugby wing of our family (we also have a robust soccer wing) to his under-eights game one recent Saturday. We get on well and he was his usual ebullient self on the way to the ground. On the return journey, however, he was somewhat taciturn.

“You missed your dad?” I suggested.

Tactfully: “A bit.” His father is the team coach.

“What’s wrong with a grandfather?”

“Well…you’re old.”

“So?”

“Well, you can’t run around the field.”

“How do you know? You’ve never seen me try.”

Recourse to his gift for comic invention had become inevitable: “Sometimes at training we accidentally step on Dad’s foot with our sprigs. He just swears but, if we did it to you, I think you’d go down.”

Each of the essays in the hardback volume – the first title to be published by Quadrant Books – contains sentences, ideas, logic and laughs that sparkle like newly polished gems.

An early shot of newspaper man Frank Devine playing billiards

Devine writes about the “special choreography” of a marriage that survives and thrives after 50 years; about Margot Kingston’s “insistent drone of scold” in her book Not Happy, John!; about the delights of reading Wodehouse out loud to his wife – “once caught in the Wodehouse web there is no escape”; on Winston Churchill “pommy bastard”; about being home alone – “my household duties over the years have been light but I am by no means hapless. Not everybody accepts me as fully hap, however”; and extracts a revelatory and compelling conversation with historian Geoffrey Blainey who admits “to some extent I lead two lives”.

Devine’s brilliance can be found in the myriad of subjects he tackles and conquers, and the subtlety and finesse with which he executes the written word.

Older and Wiser is as beautiful to behold as the words contained therein. And as this collection of 34 essays from a total of 67 amply proves, Devine is among the finest wordsmiths Australia, sorry, New Zealand, has ever produced.

(Full disclosure: Frank Devine, who died in July from cancer, was a close personal friend.)

The book retails for $44.95

Intrepid climbers taking on Mt Kilimanjaro for The Humpty Dumpty Foundation in August 2009

The sons of Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay – the legendary Everest team that first conquered the world’s highest peak in 1953 – are planning their first joint assault on Mt Kilimanjaro.

Peter Hillary and Jamling Tenzing Norgay will lead a team of climbers to the peak of Tanzania’s highest free-standing mountain in July next year.

And the accomplished mountaineers, who have each twice followed in their famous fathers’ footsteps up Everest, are making the ascent for The Humpty Dumpty children’s charity in Sydney.

“The Hillary-Norgay summit of Everest back in the 1950s is a great story and for the two sons to be climbing Kilimanjaro together is pretty special, particularly as they are doing it for charity,” Humpty’s chairman and founder Paul Francis told me. “Peter Hillary is really excited about it, and so am I. It will take the event to a whole new level and hopefully get more people involved.”

The New Zealand-based Hillary, 55, climbed Everest for the first time in 1990 making him and Sir Edmund the first father-son duo to make the summit. Norgay, 44, has twice scaled the epic peak the Sherpa people call The Mother Goddess of the World – the first time in 1996 during the most disastrous climbing season on the mountain when 15 people died.

Norgay wrote the best-selling book, Touching My Father’s Soul, which gave a compelling account of the disasters from the Sherpas’ points of view. American writer Jon Krakauer was also on the ascent with another adventure team and wrote Into Thin Air about the trek in which five of his fellow mountaineers died.

Norgay, who lives in Nepal, and Hillary recreated their fathers’ journey in 2003 when they took on Everest together to mark the 50^th anniversary of that celebrated first summit of Chomolungma as the Tibetans call the mountain.

The 2010 Kilimanjaro trek follows The Humpty Dumpty Foundation’s first successful summit of Kili in August this year, which raised $1.35 million for the charity.

Federal Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey and Francis, who was awarded the Order of Australia in the recent Queen’s Birthday honours list, led the inaugural group of 22 trekkers including Paralympian Kelly Cartwright, Sunrise co-host David Koch, and paediatrician Jonny Taitz.

They made the summit under a full moon on August 5 after 12 hours of climbing.

The Humpty Kili Club at the Uhuru Peak 5890mt above sea level

“It was harder than anyone imagined, even after spending the previous five days acclimatising to the altitude,” says Francis. “It was the hardest thing we have ever done. Equally though, it’s also one of the most amazing things we’ve ever done.”

And now the charity, which buys vital life saving medical equipment for more than 60 children’s wards in hospitals around Australia and East Timor, is preparing to do it all again under the guidance of Norgay and Hillary, and possibly Hillary’s daughter Amelia.

“There’s an enormous amount of support for it,” says Francis.

Aden Young, one of the stars of Bruce Beresford's new epic, Mao's Last Dancer. Picture by Marco del Grande @ The Sydney Morning Herald

The incredibly talented Aden Young, one of this country’s most under-utilised and under-rated actors, was on the red carpet last night at the Australian premiere of Mao’s Last Dancer.

The 37-year-old Canadian-born Sydney transplant has a small but strong role in the Bruce Beresford epic based on the best-selling autobiography of the same name by Chinese ballet dancer Li Cunxin, who defected to the United States in 1981, and is played by another incredible dancer Chi Cao in the film.

Young was worried that his characterisation of the Texan oil tycoon Dilworth – who helped Cunxin defect – was “too big”.

It’s not. Young recently told me it was the first time he had played a real life character in his two-decade long career that includes 30 films not to mention work behind-the-scenes.

“The great bonus of being involved in something like this is being face to face with Li and meeting him and being able to, I guess, come face to face with somebody of such exquisite talent,” Young told me.

I met Young at the 1991 Toronto Film Festival when he made his feature film debut in another Beresford epic, Black Robe. Back then, Young was touted as “the next big thing” but he determinedly took a low-key route and by-passed Hollywood where he was dubbed “Dr No” because he turned down roles that didn’t appeal to him.

He admitted the decision had taken a financial toll.

But after his partner of seven-year, Loene Carmen, fell pregnant with their son Dutch – who is now almost three years old – he threw himself back into the picture, so to speak.

Mao’s Last Dancer - which I loved  - is the third film in which he has teamed up with Beresford.

“What I like about him [Beresford] is that his irreverence to the craft is married to such a wealth of cinematic language. He knows what he wants and allows you to find it. I am always quite amazed,” Young says of working on the $25 million film with the director. “He [says] essentially ‘what would you do?’ and you might suggest a particular range of objectives and actions and he’ll say, ‘can it fit within this physical structure?’ and away you go.

“There’s not an extraordinary lot of discussion, at least there wasn’t from my point of view. Whereas with other directors you really nut [the role] down to every single word and syllable. What I love about acting is how every single project is completely different. You meet a first time director who is absolutely assured it’s going to work this way, whereas you’ve worked in five different processes where it’s never worked that way and then you’re amazed that it does work that way because he’s coming at it from a different perspective.”

Young is about to embark on another Australian-made film, Beneath Hill 60 and has just finished working with Charlotte Gainsborough in Queensland on a film helmed by Julie Bertucelli (Since Otar Left).

Stars of Mao's Last Dancer Chi Cao and Amanda Schull at Australian premiere in Sydney. Picture by Gay Gerard/Getty Images AsiaPac

Also at the premiere were fellow actors Jack Thompson (who also has a small role as a judge in the film), Michael Caton (The Castle), and a chorus line of ballet stars including the debonair artistic director of the Australian Ballet David McAllister and Graham Murphy. Sarah Murdoch was a towering presence, The Today show co-host Karl Stefanovic worked the mezzanine with aplomb, Ros Packer was spied chatting to friends, and John and Caroline Laws held court. Other guests included magazine maven and Australian Women’s Weekly heavyweight Deborah Thomas and her husband, Vitek, former sports reporter Mary-Anne Dibbs (who now looks after media and communications for the luxury resort Pinctada at Cable Beach in Western Australia), Sydney businesswoman Glenn-Marie Frost, and Jane Fraser, one of the smartest columnists at The Australian.

Chef and owner of Becasse restaurant, Justin North

Given that Australia has turned into a nation of gastroporn addicts – how else to explain one in four Australians tuning in to the finale of the inaugural Masterchef reality TV show? – it’s time to take a behind-the-scenes look at one of Sydney’s finest restaurants, Becasse.

Owned and founded by Kiwi-born chef, Justin North and his wife, Georgia, the Clarence Street eatery has won a slew of awards for a number of very good reasons including the fact that he uses only the very best Australian produce as well as some of the nation’s best local wines.

At a lunch last week, North showcased a range of delicious items that star in his menus as well as the people who produce them, including scallop diver Craig McCathie from Port Lincoln in South Australia (who gave me a detailed history of scallops and when to eat and not to eat), Duncan Garvey, Truffle legend from Perigord Truffles in Tasmania and quail grower Charlie Scott.

The great thing about dining at Becasse is experiencing North’s passion for food from the ground up. The day before lunch, he took a team from the French boite on a truffle hunt in the Southern Highlands and personally dug around in the dirt. He collected about a kilogram of truffles, worth in excess of $2500, which he used in five sensational ways at lunch.

Truffle grower Duncan Garvey revealed he was considered “crazy” when he told people he wanted to grown French-style truffles in Australia. But he did just that in Tasmania and, in 1999, debuted his delicacy at Sydney’s acclaimed French restaurant, Claudes.

“The number one thing we try to do is promote our local producers and highlight the importance of the passionate producer. We couldn’t work without their incredible passion,” North said. “We try to connect directly with the producers and growers to teach skills to the young guys in our kitchen.”

For instance, it’s nothing for North and his team of chefs to be in the kitchen at 6am when an entire beef carcass is dropped off instead of pre-cut packets of meat that look like they never drew breath. The chefs then learn the craft and traditions of butchery by breaking down the beast, every last bit of which is used in the scores of dishes plated up at any of North’s four establishments. (Some boast he makes the best burgers in town at his smaller cafe, Plan B).

Justin North doesn't just make a burger - he makes a taste sensation.

Among the local producers at lunch was Hunter Valley winemaker, Ian Scarborough, who I believe makes one of the country’s best, buttery chardonnays and who respected wine writer John Fordham rates highly. Scarborough, whose range of wines carry the family name, began working with the Norths when he opened Becasse in 2001 on its original site in Albion Street, Surry Hills.

“One of the great early memories I have is of Georgia and Ian sitting on milk crates in Albion Street drinking wine out of plastic cups – we didn’t have the restaurant set up yet –  and that image has stayed with me,” said North, who The Sydney Morning Herald named the 2009 chef of the year.

One of the lunch dishes we ate last week was a tender slow cooked breast and confit leg of Redgate Jurassic quail with truffle veloute. For the Philistines among you, the quail is comically called “Jurassic” because of its size which weighs in between 300 and 350 grams, according to producer Charlie Scott. The next closest bird is between 200-240 grams.

Scott’s family were early pioneers in the Hunter Valley and set up their farm in the 1830s. Scott is passionate about the industry and is keen to breed even bigger quails, with a 400-500 gram table bird a real possibility in the not-too-distant future.

And speaking of passion: the quail was cooked at 62.5 degrees Celsius; the seared scallops were what’s known as “hand-dived scallops” in that the diver who harvested them swam along the bottom of the ocean and collected them by hand, rather than the usual way of trawling or dredging; the truffle brioche was sprinkled with black Cyprus sea salt; and the truffles North collected were found in suitably stink earth around hazelnut, and English and French oak trees.

The best thing, though, was that everything North served at the amazing lunch – dubbed the “producers winter forum” – was all produced in Australia. Now that’s supporting the local industry.

(The “seasonal producers lunch” is available every day at Becasse for $35 and includes a glass of wine.)