Rupert Goodwins' Diary

What I didn't say last Friday was that on finishing the diary, I was heading off to Scotland by train. Not just any train neither, but the GNER Wi-Fi Special: a satellite-connected marvel that trundles on a regular basis between London and Scotland. As do I. Please, Mr PR Man, can I test your wireless service? I can? Whoopee!

The journey up is a roaring success. You'll have to wait for the full write-up for the technical ins and outs, but the connection holds up much better than I had feared. The four and a half hour journey slips by in a caffeinated haze: if nothing else, the Internet is a fearsomely effective way to lose time.

As an experiment, I hook up a Web cam to the laptop and point it out of the window, relaying the images to the office. This proves almost infinitely entrancing, especially after someone hooks up a video projector back at base. IM after IM flow in, requesting that I point the camera at this or that, offering guesses as to how far I've got, and -- most popular of all -- asking that I spy on fellow passengers.

Of course, I have to comply. Whether it was the two suits sitting opposite who were ostentatiously planning to sell far too much consultancy to a Government agency ("That's a million quid right there, just for the feasibility! Yeah!") or the couple of matronly women who set up a card school and sank bottles of champagne between Newcastle and Edinburgh, the chaps back at base couldn't get enough of this cinéma-vérité of the permanent way.

Not that there aren't problems. The Web cam was a last-minute idea, and instead of some discreet little thing I'm packing an enormous Creative Technologies antique, a camera so massive it has four rubber feet to hold up its oversise lens. Surely, I think, my fellow passengers must spot what's happening. But they don't -- or at least, affect not to notice, even when I stand up and pan around the carriage ostentatiously with the true Goliath in my hand.

Monday, and I plan my return journey meticulously to optimise the views and opportunities for exciting footage. But signal failure -- of the old-fashioned, not wireless, kind -- means that I don't get a Wi-Fi train as planned and miss my connection. Not content with that, fate gives me one last jab in the ribs and arranges for us to sit out in the fields beyond York for an hour while the train in front of us is abducted by aliens from Doncaster.

Never mind. Given the state of popular TV, I think I'll pitch four and a half hours of East Coast main line Web cammery to BBC 4 as a themed evening. Can fame and fortune be far away?