John Lloyd: Liff of QI

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It's 55 minutes before any of this makes sense. We discover, with a subtle plug-in closing, that John Lloyd, founder of the BBC megalith QI and all-round stalwart of the corporation's comedy mill, has a new book out – a sequel to the dictionary of new words he penned with the late Douglas Adams. In that sense, and only that sense, this disparate hodgepodge of anecdotes and avuncular musings sits quite comfortably. Less a desperate money spinner than a frothy preamble to having your stocking filler signed, this is the perfectly pleasant ambling of a man whose currency, clearly, is enthusiasm rather than cynicism.

What Lloyd delivers is an hour-long sampler of what it's like to spend 30-odd years as a curious, engaging and witty part of the BBC comedy gang. Tenuously linked by a sense of wonder at all we don't know, our raconteur leaps between topics, segueing from licence fee payers' complaints to Kiwi guide dogs without necessary excuse. "The best practical joke I know was carried out in 1973...," he recalls. "I was shooting a Daim bar advert with Harry [Enfield]...," starts another. These are party favourites, one suspects, well honed through repetition.

On occasion the 61-year-old strays towards oafishness, bemoaning "the sad state of education in this country", or eulogising "the old BBC". But there's little by way of bad behaviour to be found here. Soft-edged, sepia-tinged and backward-looking, this is just fine.