John Lloyd (I)

For the uninitiated, The Museum of Curiosity is presented by comedy producer/godlike genius John Lloyd, and he's joined by a different 'curator' each series; Bill Bailey, Sean Lock and now the brilliant Jon Richardson. Three contributors - comedians, scientists, authors, historians, generally fascinating people - donate something the museum each week, and that something can be absolutely anything, no matter how huge, tiny, fictional or dead. I won't give away what Shappi Khorsandi, Terry Pratchett and Marcus Chown ("cosmology consultant of New Scientist") gave to the museum in the episode I saw recorded, but I will say that all three spoke passionately about their donation, and that Chown's made my brain hurt for days. The series will air later in the Spring.

A festive dollop of the panel show that encourages comedians (not that comedians need much encouragement) to twist the truth into interesting new shapes for our amusement. With David Mitchell, Stephen Fry, John Lloyd and Rob Brydon on board, this promises to be a lavish smorgasbord of skulduggery and fabrication.

BBC2 continues its pattern of making a new documentary as an excuse for airing repeats, although why they're only running one classic episode of Not The Nine O'Clock News is a puzzle. Surely a show of its calibre deserves more?

But at least the tribute show actually has the original cast in it and not just a series of C-list talking heads that werent actually alive when the show was made. Stars Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson talk about the series that helped turn them into household names, as does producer John Lloyd.

Youd think the guy in charge would have kept his team in check but not John. Mel, Griff and I were the naughty boys, he recalls. Wed always go to the pub at lunch and Rowan would work on his scripts. Poor Rowan, the nerdy student who did his work while his mates got hammered. But at least it paved the way for him to turn into TVs ultimate dork, Mr Bean.

A painfully revealing episode of Radio 4's The Reunion in 2005 shed a bright light on some of the darker recesses of one of television's best-loved topical comedy shows. In this look back, producer and driving force John Lloyd talks again of the backbreaking effort that went into Not the Nine O'Clock News, first shown 30 years ago: "My memory was that it was a nightmare of overwork. I mean, everything was stressful. We used to be green with exhaustion." Not Again looks at a show that launched some great British comic performers, and also Richard Curtis, Clive Anderson and Andy Hamilton, who contributed to the scripts.

Karl Marx once downed a pint in all 18 pubs between Oxford Street and the Hampstead Road; as an infant, Oliver Cromwell was abducted by a monkey; Catherine de Medici invented the fork, and Genghis Khan pioneered zero-tolerance policing. Such is the fibre of this collection - from the producers of the BBC2 show - of 68 breezy, witty mini-biographies of great, good and simply odd lives, from Epicurus to Tallulah Bankhead. It's a much wordier, longer book than previous QI spin-offs, though the irreverent, lively tone should inspire the recipient to ask for full-length lives of some of the fascinating subjects covered (Faber £16.99).

John Lloyd, producer of Not the Nine O'Clock News, Blackadder and currently QI, takes The Word magazine's invitation to list Five Lessons I've Learnt as an opportunity for a curmudgeonly polemic. Today's programme makers, he argues, pick ideas apart instead of using intuition, and say: "If people want crap, let's give them crap." "When we [Lloyd's generation] made programmes, the idea was to make them as unlike anything else that was around at the time. Now it's got to be exactly the same as something that's already successful." All very cogent, although some wonder how Lloyd evinced his lifelong quest for original shows by following the brainy TV panel game QI with the brainy radio panel game The Museum of Curiosity.

Quaintly instructive: the QI literary quiz

Just what were the 39 steps? Whose bonkbuster allegedly made the earth move? And which celebrity author had a job that paid a pitcher of wine a day? Perk up your grey matter with an exclusive QI literary quiz.

A Blissful, Timeless Exploration Of Human 'Ignorance'

The 18th century poet Thomas Gray is responsible for the often quoted phrase, "Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise." President Thomas Jefferson embellished that quotation with one of his own when he said, "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?" - a line that British comedy writers John Lloyd and John Mitchinson co-opted for the title of their new anthology of quotations.

Lloyd and Mitchinson talk with Liane Hansen about their third book together, titled If Ignorance Is Bliss ... Why Aren't There More Happy People?. It follows The Book of General Ignorance and The Book of Animal Ignorance.

Executive producer John Lloyd explains BBC's QI refusal

John Hodgman's public lambasting of the BBC for not bringing QI to America didn't explain the network's reason for their decision, other than Dumb Ol' America is so dumb (how dumb are we?) that when we go to a sperm bank, we ask the teller for a BLANK.

Thankfully, Hodgman isn't the only man coming to the U.S.A.'s defense. John Lloyd, the show's executive producer, feels the same way so much so that he was willing to interrupt his vacation in Turkey to chat with me about it.

The Final Word: For some, even 15 minutes would be too

An article about the release of the third QI book, Advanced Banter, being published in the United States. The American version is entitled If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People?