I Must Collect Myself, By Maureen Lipman

Middle-class grumblings with a theatrical twist

As befits a contributor to Grumpy Old Women, Maureen Lipman offers up a familiar but still amusing set of complaints about the modern world, as well as middle-class angst about beggars and how to help.

(On the day of the 7/7 bombings, she and a friend got in the car to offer any stranded souls a lift home, before realising that they probably looked like "some sort of cruising perverts".)

What distinguishes these mid-market grumblings are Lipman's anecdotes about her life in theatre and TV and her husband, Jack Rosenthal, whose ghost reminds us of the difference between reality and reality TV: "Jack made dramas about real people, yet ironically, nowadays people think life is not real unless it's corroborated by the media."