"Bunnies don't blog..."

We are the Jaysmiths, Gil and Sarah, and we live in Vancouver. This has been the case for, oooh, very nearly an entire day as I write this.

This blog is several things in one. It's our diary. It's a letter to everyone we've left behind in England. It's a record of how Vancouver and its environs strike a 36-year-old English man and a 32-year-old Irish-American woman. And, it's a SECRETLY-ENCODED ANALYSIS OF THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DA VINCI CODE!!!! ... no, not really of course. But who knows whether it'll become that, in time (1).

So who are we and why are we in Vancouver? Surely you need to know these key details in order to appreciate our candid document of what we do here and how we like it? Well, much of our backstory will unfold in time, like the forensic text of a well-plotted mystery. The plan, to give it an exceedingly complimentary description, is to unfold the future alongside our origami past, so that anyone who knows us is bored only for 50% of the time, while anyone who already knows Vancouver and understands Canadians is bored for the other 50% of the time. It's just as well we have no Canadian friends at this moment because if we did, they'd be bored all the time. Of course, if we do and I've forgotten them, then they'll feel aggrieved and won't read this anyway. Thus is everyone left at least partly happy.

I'll tell you this for starters. My name - the current typist, this is - is Gil Jaysmith. I was born Gil Johnson-Smith but shortened it by common usage and later by deed poll in my twenties. For most of my life I've been working in computing, and for eleven years have had something more or less specific to do with computer games. You may have failed to register my name in the credits for Medieval: Total War and Spartan: Total Warrior. Those of you with particularly long memories for not noticing stuff will have no idea that I wrote some Spectrum games back in the year dot (1986, kids! It wasn't all big hair and Channel Four realising it had only 29 viewers). And in a few years' time you'll probably fail to spot my name in a game by Radical Entertainment. This is why I'm here: to make my mark - a dent of as yet indeterminate shape - in the Canadian games industry, working for the company which brought you Scarface: The World Is Yours, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, and The Simpsons: Hit And Run. Three good games from the same company, especially three hits attached to other-media licenses, is a positive sign in my book. Perhaps it's just the colons which do it for me. Anyway, they've got me for now.

Oh, and I'm generally called Panda, owing to a love bordering on obsession for pandas. I have the same goodwill towards manatees, but no-one ever calls me Manatee. Odd.

Accompanying me in this whirlwind relocation to Vancouver is my wife, Sarah, born Delaney. Sarah will probably have her own words for herself - and quite likely for me too, once she reads this (2) - but I would describe her as Irish-American, deceptively quiet, musically excellent, very bright, and beautiful to my eyes. And then I'd get back to talking about myself, egoistic pig that I am. Sarah is referred to colloquially as Bunny, and, in more formal settings, as The Rabbit.

This is us:



The third singer in this duet is the city of Vancouver. How did we get here? Why? When? What? Whither? Stay tuned for the unique experience of the Jaysmith Blog TARDIS which will help you understand our past as it directed our future. But first, or rather next, just what happened on that awesome day of emigration? Read on!



(1) Actually this is unlikely. I read Foucault's Pendulum a long time ago, and The Invisibles more recently, and as I doubt there are many other places for conspiracy thrillers to go, I just haven't bothered checking...

(2) Sarah, proofreading at an early stage, advises me that "Bunnies don't blog", so it looks like I get to say whatever I want about her without contradiction - although obviously I need to weigh a journalistic sense of "print-the-truth-and-damn-the-consequences" against, well, the consequences.