I DON'T know if there's some sort of checklist one has to complete in order to be officially verified as a Grumpy Old Woman, but I can't imagine I'd be too far off scoring high marks were it to exist. While at 32 I'm hardly in line for a pensioner's discount on the trams, I do tend to get unreasonably pissed off about "electro" music, and don't get me started on manners.

So when I saw that the Grumpy Old Women series was returning to the ABC I must confess to getting a little excited. Mouthy dames soapboxing about matters of the heart? What better way to while away an evening while broad-shouldered scaries splashed about in faraway Chinese pools?

The show itself was simply a series of static interviews with various female celebrities of a certain age, though there was a variety of real-life Grumpy Old Women too, interviewed out in the streets and in shopping malls saying reasonably mystifying things like "I cannot remember a PIN number" and "I hate it when you go to the theatre with a friend and there's only one toilet". (What does this mean? What does going with a friend have to do with anything? Why the theatre? My head hurts.) They were soon replaced by people named Ann Widdecombe and Kathryn Flett, who presumably do various worthwhile things somewhere in Britain, and someone off-camera said "What else makes you a little bit cross?" or something of that ilk, and before you knew it half an hour of chatting had passed and it was time to watch Grand Designs.

The topics on offer last week, it must be said, were a little disappointing. I don't know anyone who doesn't get the irrits up about that idiotic Microsoft paperclip - it hardly seems the sole domain of menopausal women to bang a laptop in frustration when the perky little dickwad inquires as to whether one is writing a letter - and the episode I saw also included underwhelming forays into the subject of checkout queues (infuriating, apparently), texting (can be fiddly and difficult) and electronic messaging (occasionally addictive. Who knew?).

The sad fact of it all is that in the end it didn't really matter who the talking heads on our television were - the episode could quite as easily have been titled Grumpy Bespectacled Prepubescents, or Grumpy Obese Fans of the MC5's Earlier Work, and the result would have been relatively similar.

Nobody much enjoys sauntering up and down supermarket aisles outside of Britlee Spears on an "up", and I'm yet to meet someone at a party who silences a room by announcing, "I don't know what the big fuss is about those Cialix mass emails inviting me to get a longer and stronger erection, I think they're wonderful," though if I do I'll be sure to unfriend them on Facebook. Why not ask these women about Michael Douglas and his strangely taut face, or what it feels like rereading erotic fiction that once bewitched them during teenaged years, or the startling and heartbreaking moment they discovered the course of true love never runs smooth?

Something a genuine Grumpy Old Woman would not only be able to share insight on, but enlighten us with, transfix us about via knowledge gained. I'm not averse to these women being on television. Far from it. They're incisive, witty, warm, juicy and pleasingly rude. But after watching them for 30 minutes, about all I could ascertain is that they don't much like the spellcheck function on their computers and they wear red lipstick. What a dreadful waste. I'd be happier seeing them crowded around a dinner table drinking flagons of wine and feasting on roast pig.

The highlight of last week's episode was of course HRH Madame Greer, who presumably made time to film a few vox pops in between appearing on every other show the ABC has on offer. (I'm yet to see her bobbing up and down on a gondola on the Murray flipping burgers with Stefano de Pieri, though when she does I'm sure it will make for suitably jolly television.)

She was, of course, wonderful and terrifying and acerbic and hilarious and many other nice things I'd like to say because a) I happen to find her challenging and marvellous no matter how wildly libellous she can occasionally be, and b) I'm going to see her tomorrow and I hope she doesn't hit me. She proved a happily familiar face among the only partly recognisable array of British wommyn's comics and television presenters. While other participants twittered about being "bossed around" by irksome spam emails, Germaine simply stated she'd probably pay more attention to them if they offered her a product she might actually be interested in, like Botox or crack. Why she doesn't have her own Tonight show is utterly beyond me.

The sad fact about Grumpy Old Women (8pm Tuesdays on ABC1) in its present guise is I can't really see why it exists at all. Yes, it's a "response" to the male series Grumpy Old Men and it's lovely to see that ladies are quite capable of being wry and cantankerous too, but why this format, and why so many wondrous women's opinions wasted on fluff? There's still time; pop Germaine in a room with Janette Howard and a bottle of Stone's Ginger Wine and get them exchanging ideas on indigenous Australia. I can imagine little more thrilling.

mhardy@access.fairfax.com.au