Inferno

We spotted this: a reader comment on ABC's Esperance Breakfast blog, urging all to pick up and read Roger Franklin's account of Black Saturday fires, Inferno. We think reader John makes a strong point, and a year on from that tragic day, Inferno still makes for powerful, pertinent reading.

"One of the perverse blessings of Black Saturday is the literary output it has inspired. I picked up a copy of Ms Clode's book (A Future in Flames by Danielle Clode) at the airport bookshop yesterday and have almost finished it. Well-written and compelling, I regard it as a bookend to the other great book – and I do mean great – on Black Saturday, Roger Franklin's Inferno: The Day Victoria Burned.

They make an interesting pair. Clode wonders why Australia never learns from the lessons of previous bushfires. So does Franklin, whose account is less personal but much more angry that the findings of Justice Stretton and other bushfire investigators are almost always ignored by do-nothing governments.

If your goal is to get a state-wide overview of what caused the fires, why they raged so intensely, and why this state government in Victoria is grossly culpable in its emergency management procedures, I would urge readers to select "Inferno". The chapter on the blokes who took refuge in a water tank and survived against all odds is a treat.

If you favour a personal narrative that makes many of the same points, go for Clode's book. But ideally, read both. And then demand that public policy reflects reality, not PR and spin. My interest, by the way, is personal. members of my extended family barely escaped Black Saturday with their lives.

Posted by: john | 04/02/2010 at 12:04 PM

New AFL season, new photos website

Footy's back, at last! Just in time for tonight's game, marking the start of 2010's NAB Cup, The Slattery Media Group relaunches photography website, AFLphotos.com.au. With a new design, improved format for viewing images of AFL games, players, personalities and events, and over 130,000 images in our archives, the new site allows fans the choice to view images in a gallery or sorted by clubs, the latest events and most popular.

Check it out at aflphotos.com.au. We'd love to hear what you think; let us know by emailing askus@slatterymedia.com.

Australia's favourite sports iPhone App gets better

Footy Lite is the fastest way to access live AFL Scores. It’s free to download on the iTunes App Store, and version 1.3 has just gone live, with the new season's fixture, and player profiles.

The new version of Footy Lite features: Live scores Full 2010 season fixture, including localised match time, venue and TV broadcaster Player profiles Up-to-date ladder Results of all completed matches

It's the same great App as you had last year, just better. If you weren't on board last year, now's the time. And if you were, it's time for an upgrade.

Season 2010, here it comes

The first AFL Record for season 2010 has just been produced by The Slattery Media Group. This acts as a program for the NAB Cup, the official pre-season competition of the AFL, and also as a preview for the remarkably popular AFL Dream Team competition. The Dream Team preview edition (pictured) will be sold through newsagents across Australia (RRP $7). The 124-page magazine, featuring profiles of every player on AFL lists for the 2010 season has been produced in this format for the last two seasons, and is a proven seller.

Also on sale in February will be the AFL Record Guide To Season 2010 (RRP $39.95, on sale at newsagents and bookstores) – the 15th edition of what has become the statistical bible of the AFL. This year’s guide contains 992 pages crammed with statistics, history and information as well as a thorough review of the 2009 season and a comprehensive preview of the 2010 season.

AFL Record Guide To Season 2010 also includes full details on the draft, profiles on every player in the competition – from rookies to superstars – and an analysis of each round of the 2010 fixture.

The Slattery Media Group has been the official publisher for the AFL since 1995.

The pre-season Record is available at the game, and in newsagents, Angus and Robertson stores, Borders and Big W. Or click here to purchase.

Philippe Mouchel cooks Fish Quenelles

As part of Taste Le Tour with Gabriel Gaté, Philippe Mouchel demonstrates cooking Fish Quenelles in this video. The chef, referred to by Gaté as a "superchef" learned the recipe while working under the guidance of Paul Bocuse. It is a classic dish, and is made easy with the video demonstration from Mouchel.

Positive feedback

Last week, we received some very positive feedback from the team at Inglis, regarding our work developing their auction site. Our digital team works hard to provide digital solutions internally and to external clients, and it is nice to see their work applauded.

Breednet reviewed the Inglis site favourably, and then received the following email from a user. It is the user, after all, who matters most. Phil Giles wrote the following: "I come in a bit unique as an auction house website user. I'm blind and use a screen reader to find what I'm after. I've been doing the catalogues for 10 years and hands down the Inglis site has it over the Millions site. ... Inglis have the best by far. Love the site and enjoy the newsletters heaps!"

See the inglis site here.

Photographing a French Gentleman

It isn’t often you get the chance to enter a professional kitchen, and watch a world-famous chef chop, dice and flambé vegetables, and fillet delicious-smelling cured salmon for the camera. Yesterday, we took two Slattery Media photographers, Lachlan Cunningham and Michael Willson, down to The Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel to snap the French chef in action. Action, that is, before the day’s service had started, so we would not get in the way of frantic perfection. It was a hot, windy day, but for the shots outside (with the city as his background), Mouchel was the perfect subject, smiling for the camera, toque (chef’s hat) on his head, sun in his eyes. His first book, a collection of life stories and recipes from his life with food, is beginning to take early shape, and is on track for release late next year.

SMG to celebrate Philippe Mouchel

Philippe Mouchel
(pictured with his mentor, the world famous chef Paul Bocuse)

The Slattery Media Group is proud to announce an exciting new collaboration with renowned chef, Philippe Mouchel, and esteemed food writer, Rita Erlich. Mouchel's CV is impressive: he was trained in the classic French manner in Lyon under the legendary Paul Bocuse. At 22, he headed up a restaurant for Bocuse in Japan, and later ran another at Daimaru in Melbourne. He currently runs the Brasserie by Philippe Mouchel at Melbourne's Crown complex.

The publication will be part-memoir, part-cookbook, celebrating the life, times and recipes of Mouchel, with Erlich (who edited The Age's Good Food Guide once upon a time) as co-writer.

We are a food-loving organisation that is itching to get started on this great project.

The book is set to be launched late-2010.

Huey Cooks a Feast

On Tuesday, Iain ‘Huey’ Hewitson launched his new recipe book, Huey’s Bloody Good Recipes, at Barney Allen’s, the restaurant he co-owns in St Kilda. Showcasing recipes from the book, Huey cooked a delicious menu for a select group of Australian media and personalities, which were very well received. It was an afternoon of good food, fine wine and great company.

The menu included prosciutto-wrapped asparagus with horseradish cream, a house salted fish cake with Dijon mustard aioli, oysters mornay, roast chicken presented two ways: the breast on a bed of creamy mash with herb butter and the leg shredded in a Thai slaw. For a sweet treat, dessert was a grilled banana split drizzled in palm sugar and orange caramel.

The recipes contained in *Huey’s Bloody Good Recipes *are designed to expand your cooking repertoire, without any fuss and hassle. The book expounds that good home cooking is not about being a genius in the kitchen – it’s about organisation and good-quality ingredients. An ethos that Huey is passionate about.

Following the launch, Huey embarked on his book tour, starting at Angus and Robertson in Melbourne for a food demo and book signing. He will also appear in Melbourne from Nov 9–14, before moving onto Sydney Nov 17–21, Brisbane Nov 23¬–26, Gold Coast Nov 26, and Adelaide Dec 2–4.

Watch a video of Iain introducing his new book.

Huey’s Bloody Good Recipes is available for purchase here.

Inferno, reviewed

Inferno: The Day Victoria Burned, written by esteemed journalist Roger Franklin and published here at The Slattery Media Group, was released barely seven months after the dark day of February 7, now known to all as Black Saturday. The Australian Literary Review this week published a review of Inferno that describes the publication as “remarkable for the speed and energy of its production”. And, as reviewer Paul Williams also states, haste did not compromise quality; we are very proud of the depth to Franklin’s research, and manner in which the story is delivered. It is a publication we believe should be read by all Victorians.

“Franklin presents two humanities,” wrote Williams. “He introduces us to the survivors via short biographical sketches that underscore their Australian ordinariness, yet who stand out not because of the disaster but for their fortitude despite it … But Franklin conjures another, darker inhumanity: the arsonist who commits the crime as foul as it is impossible to comprehend.”

The scale of this tragedy is still difficult to fully comprehend for most onlookers, and Inferno takes us deeper into those flames than we could have imagined.

As Williams describes: “This is at once a heart-rending account, written with a journalist's ear for the human angle, of a singular, tragic episode and a transcendent wake-up call... The almost poetic incursions only add to the urgency of Franklin's message. Florid descriptions of the inferno as ‘fists of roiling fire’ and as the ‘tyrant's torture and the martyr's lament’ don't seem out of place when reflecting on a national tragedy of this scale.”

The Australian makes strong, positive claims about the quality of Inferno, and Franklin’s story telling; read the entire review here.

Purchase a copy of Inferno here.