Compared with over 5 millions of the North and the South Vietnamese Soldiers and Vietnamese Civilians death and wound in the Vietnam-America war, the number of Australians casualties is less ten thousand times. Yet, the death or wounding or missing of anyone all brings the same grief to their relatives.

A silent moment for all. And a silent moment to pray for the world’s peace.

Hyde Park on a sunny autumn day. The clamour of Elizabeth, Liverpool and Park streets is almost waned away. These two men so deeply sleep that nothing can wake them up, despite the bright sunshine performing a mischievous dance on their faces.

Are they homeless? Are they pensioners? Where do they live? Why do they sleep in this park in such a very early morning? Questions dance with wistfulness.

The Anzac Memorial and Hyde Park on a sunny autumn day. Everything looks brighter and cleaner as if they wanted to hide miserable lives. The images of war are a substitute for a peaceful life in Sydney. Hoping that no war memorial will be built in the world. Hoping that no one will be affected by war, like Vietnamese, Australians or Americans.

Hoping the world will be in peace, like a nice sunny morning I enjoy in Hyde Park.

This blog was first established on December 3, 2007 and has 42 posted document up to April 28, 2008. In order to contribute a panorama of view of the Beijing Olympic Games, the blog has a diversity of links that bring more interesting information to pique the readers’ attentions. There are approximately 5 links in a posted articles. Beyond six main links which are indicated in the Blogroll, Bob also guides the readers to a large range of news for the Beijing Olympic Games from official websites or online journals or unofficial voices such as some different private blogs. The blog has contributed adequate information: background about China, some aspects that have impact in The Beijing Olympic Games such as Tibet crisis and air pollution.

For example, writing about London Olympic Torch, the blog demonstrates eight links that guide the readers to the variety of views about the protest of Tibetan in London:

So as to diversify the substance, the blog also conducts the readers to some famous sources such as youtube, bbc or the United Kingdom online journal by Rich Site Summary (RSS). RSS technique helps the readers easily to retrieve the latest information without updating regularly. Thanks to the RSS Feed, readers can obtain contents from the related site, blogs or online publishers through this blog so that they can follow-up the newest events of the Beijing Olympic Games, such as: activities to greet the Olympic torch in England, the protest of the Tibetans.

Overall, this blog doesn’t fulfil readers’ expectations. Based on the small number of comments, readers as a whole don’t have the high opinion of this blog. This is maybe due to its serious tone in covering news. However, if people discover some more links, they will have a very large quantity of information and notions from both insiders and outsiders.

The Beijing Olympic Games raises sensitive issues because of some troubles which have occurred recently. The opinion of this event depends on the viewpoint of each person. Bob is likely not to be interested in any special fields of the Beijing Olympic Games. He mentions all activities or events or facets that have a connection with the Olympic Games such as: sports, environment, Chinese culture, games, tickets and media.

Being written from the UK, but citing the variety of news sources from newspapers or blogs inside and outside of China, this blog has objective opinions and is consistent with its original purposes. This blog itself doesn’t contain any private opinions. The author just follows up the news and informs readers, faithfully and objectively. This leads the reader to some different angle of views without criticising, even in a very sensitive problem in China such as Tibet crisis or Olympic Torch protest . The blog publicises news refer to both sides of the Beijing Olympic Games: encouraging and protesting.

However, this blog seems to have a monotonous voice. There are 25 comments in total from March 27 to April 28. Yet there are merely three noteworthy comments. One which is posted by Daisy on April 7 in response to “London Olympic Torch Relay-video”. Daisy has quite strong point of view about “peaceful protest” of the Tibetan protest in the United Kingdom. “The pro-Tibet idiots”, “their boneheaded radicalism” are her criticism. Anothers reply for “Olympic Torch Protests- Who says that?”. These comments are likely to heat the blog for moments.

1.      Writing style

As mentioned in the subtitle, the blog is an “unofficial look at China and the Beijing Olympic Games”, written by Bob, from the UK. It has a journalism style. The blog engages readers by some descriptive headlines. “Can the Olympic knock down the Great Firewall?” , “Olympic Torch will avoid Terminal disaster” , for instance. Effective anecdotes and colours (“the Great Firewall”, “the Blade Runner”) are also the aspects that make this blog intriguing. The third attracting issue is that the writer applies the inverted pyramid in approaching information and core ideas are provided to appeal to readers at the first stage. The combination of articles, videos and snapshot brings much effect and helps the reader look at the Beijing Olympic Games from a large range of sources.

 However, the blog is sometimes boring for lack of humour, passion and flexible writing style. Blogs are thought to be online diaries, so readers desire to exploit both informative details and private opinions or feeling from the author, not only a notice. One of the defects of this blog is the author is always loyal to his objective information, that his style becomes down.