DESPITE its rather gloomy title, new book The Top Five Regrets of the Dying is actually a deeply moving and uplifting road map of how to make sure none of us rock up at the Pearly Gates thinking: “Damn! I really wish I’d....”

It contains wise and simple advice – like don’t spend all your time at work and do more of what you want – and seems to neatly avoid the tyrannical approach of other preachers on this theme.

Because, let’s face it, Not Having Regrets, along with Being Happy and Living In The Moment are three Unholy Grails of modern life.

If you don’t achieve them you are made to feel that you may as well shuffle around with the word ‘Loser’ stamped on your forehead.

But why shouldn’t we have regrets? What’s wrong with thinking ‘I really wish I hadn’t done/said/bought/ missed/attended that?’ Why do people tell us; “You always regret the things you didn’t do, more than the ones you did”? How do they know? Were they there?

I am happy to admit that unlike Frank Sinatra, not only do I have more than a few regrets, it’s almost too many to mention.

But in the spirit of encouraging everyone to break free from the regret of having regrets – here are (just) a few of mine...

I regret... spending £55 on the black cashmere sweater I felt convinced would give me a Kristin Scott Thomas-ish allure, but in fact looks no different from the nylon job my best friend Sarah bought at Primark.

I regret.. not flying with the Red Arrows when they gave me the chance, in case I got scared and cried, or, worse still, vomited on the pilot.

I regret (bitterly)... believing a word Tony Blair ever said. About anything.

I regret... painting the bedroom in the first house that I owned in penicillin pink with burgundy paintwork. I’d like to claim I was on drugs at the time but I know I wasn’t because I’ve never taken any.

I regret... not becoming Britain’s answer to Olga Korbut. Even though I wasn’t even my school’s, or, come to think of it, my own household's answer to Olga Korbut.

I regret.. not taking enough photos of my children when they were little and not having a third baby in case it turned out to be as sleepless and grumpy as the second one. Who, naturally, grew up to be Mr Delightful.

I regret... not driving to London when Nelson Mandela was staying there and not trying to shake hands with him or tell him how fantastic he is.

I regret.. getting my hair cut in what looked suspiciously like a mullet when I was 17 and then allowing my mum to take a photo of me sporting the Barnet of Shame.

I regret.. buying the white ski jacket which I fancied as terribly chic but actually makes me look like the Human Puffball as I hurtle across Les Trois Vallees.

I regret... giving in to my husband’s obsession with owning a vintage VW camper and then finding ourselves stranded in the Auvergne, stranded in Devon, stranded in Hampshire, stranded on the sodding driveway before we could even get away on holiday one year.

I regret... not eating more cake, Toblerone, Petit Ecolier biccies, my mum’s chocolate trifle and big bags of salt and vinegar crisps when I was a skinny minnie who never put on any weight. Nowadays I only have to consume a Fruit Pastille find myself sporting a multi-story muffin-top. Similarly, I also regret not eating enough Cadbury’s Cabana bars – I thought they’d be around forever but then the blighters pulled them.

I regret...persisting in the tragic belief that a £45 face cream can actually get rid of wrinkles when all the evidence from my own mirror is that it can’t.

I regret... all the time I’ve wasted trying to read high-brow books by literary bores like Salman Rushdie, and watching high-brow films, like the Battleship Potemkin, and listening to plays on Radio 4 which have no appreciable conclusion when I could have been reading/ watching/listening to the story tape of Precious Ramotswe and her wonderful Ladies’ Detective Agency.

So oui, je regrette quite a lot. But, like the man who never made a mistake, the woman who never regretted anything never did anything, either.