Jamie unleashed

I would have loved Jackanory as a kid if Jamie had been on it. You don't know what I mean, I guess. You're too young. Or you aren't British. Storytelling like it used to be: no special effects, just the raw magic of words spun into narrative spells around the fireside. Well, okay, around the TV. Same difference.

Here's Jamie in thundering form on the Guardian website, captivating the nation's youth by teaching them how to be evil. True moral guidance is what it is. Nobody said which flavour of morality it had to be, did they? Oh, they did? Too late now.

The gore-coloured, twistily imaginative background picture is by Freya Hartas, who is a whole lot nicer to look at than Jamie but didn't get the gig because her laugh is sweet (deceptively so; she's actually very wicked indeed) rather than the obviously villainous guffaw of our Mr Thomson.

Oh yes, it's Thomson, by the way, not Thompson. But it wouldn't be the Guardian if they got something like that right, would it? Shouldn't knock them, though. The Grauniad is still Britain's best paper, after all, especially for books coverage, and here to prove it is Jamie's (and Dirk's) pick of the funniest reads.

A Dirk Lloyd audiobook should be out next year - narrated by Jamie (who else?) and you'll also be able to read the first in our new series, Starship Captain. But before we're quite done with 2012, you'll be wanting to see what's in the Fabled Lands Santa sack for this Yuletide. A couple of things, actually. Tune in on Monday for the first of them.