Friday 22 September 2006, 7:25 PM

Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Posted by Rupert Goodwins

Friday 22/09/2006

Tomorrow, I experience the joy of modern air travel as I waft Intel Developer Forum-wards in the back of Dell-defying Virgin Atlantic flight VS19. I've lost count of how many I've been to, but I brood on the one where I got stuck for half an hour in the lift of a new hotel in San José while the communication system played non-stop adverts for the hotel chain at us.

Lifts seem to stick in the mind. I recall one in Monaco that was lined with the hide of three Friesian cows and tastefully lit by tiny purple LEDs, and any number of external glass devices that hurtled the Goodwins mortal remains skywards while revealing far too good a vista of the cities below.

As I'm crawling towards the fifth floor of CNET Towers in London today, I'm mildly annoyed by the exceptionally dull wooden panelling that successfully imparts the impression of travelling in a tea-chest. Then it strikes me: this is the perfect environment for immersive virtual reality courtesy of a few flat-screen displays.

Imagine it: floor to ceiling high resolution LCDs, playing back images linked to the actual motion of the lift. You could ascend magisterially into the Amazonian rain forest canopy, or sink gracefully into the fish-bejewelled depths of a tropical reef. Or you could ascend the outside of a Saturn V rocket as it waits for launch,or be with Buzz and Neil as they blast off from the lunar surface. Glittering minerals in a geological seam, the mast of a first-rate ship of the line in Nelson's navy, the Vegas Strip at night — and that's before you start creating purely imaginary microflights.

What a joy it would be. I mention this to freelance Peter Judge, who's with us this week to fill in for missing news team members. His eyes light up. "How fantastic!" he says. "Endoscopies!"

He is, of course, utterly correct. Even if you dismiss the idea of a Fantastic Voyage style trip through ventricle and cortex, the idea of a hospital throwing its visitors through the glistening pink folds of a duodenum or the dark, rich mysteries of the colon is beyond reproach. The only question is: whose should be chosen for this singular honour?

Again, the answer is obvious: the chief administrator should be awarded this as a badge of office. Not only does it allow one lucky medico the pleasure of conducting the procedure — as a lottery prize, that alone could reduce the NHS benefit by millions per hospital — but there would be one spectacularly satisfying side effect. Because the lifts will be so heavily plastered in electronics, they'll be shielded from mobile phone signals — thus leading to the following occurrence, devoutly to be wished. When the lift arrives at the ground floor to pick up the chief admin, he'll have to say to whoever he's talking to on his mobile:

"I'm sorry, we're going to be cut off. I'm about to go up my own arse."

Going up...

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