If you haven't been on a train recently, then frankly I'm not surprised. I'd all but given up on that particular mode of transport over the last few years, after wrestling with the online booking system too many times only to discover that the advertised 'Saver' tickets had long since been sold, leaving only fares that even Richard Branson would baulk at. I don't know about you, but my meetings don't tend to get arranged three months in advance, and my crystal ball is in for servicing.
Luckily, things seem to have changed for the better with the recent shake-up of the rail fare system, and I've been pleasantly surprised to find tickets available a few days in advance that even the self-employed can afford. I took advantage of this last week to book a journey up north that I've previously done on the plane, and I have to say I really didn't miss the part where you queue for 40 minutes to have a man ask you to take your shoes off. I know high security is supposed to make us feel safer, but there's something quite reassuring about not being marched through a metal detector, and no matter how many times I read that airport scanners can't erase the information on your phone or laptop, I'm still happier avoiding the risk.
The plane isn't the ideal place for work, either. I can usually find WiFi at the airport, although airports are big places, and it's not really much help to be told the location of the nearest hotspot by its postcode. But once you get on the plane, well, you know how it is. You and the other 30 business flyers squeeze onto the easyJet flight among the returning hen parties, open your laptops in the tiny space in front of you, and dash off a few emails to stack up in your Outbox until the stewardess gives you that special 'switch that off or it eats tarmac' look. Then you flip your machines shut and stow them in the string vest until you reach cruising height, and at the ping of the seat belt sign out they all come again. You can then spend the rest of the journey trying to perfect the technique of typing on a keyboard that's wedged up against your ribcage without sticking your elbows into your fellow passengers. Looking at my son's favourite Tyrannosaurus rex, I sometimes wonder if palaeontologists have missed a trick: those forearms must surely have evolved for in-flight computer use.
Of course, one thing you can't do on the plane is get online, though some airlines are trying it, so we live in hope. On the train, well, like so many other things since privatisation, it just depends whose train it is. Take the East Coast Main Line - the one that was recently switched from GNER to National Express, which as far as I can see means the same people run the trains but they're painted a different colour – where using WiFi is practically obligatory. You don't even have to be in First Class. There's a socket next to every seat, and logging on is free, so if you board without your laptop you're a bit of a mug. Elsewhere in the country, though, asking the steward about WiFi can get you much the same response as if you requested foie gras.
Sadly, I can't restrict my client base to the East of England corridor, so the sooner the rest of the train companies get the hang of WiFi, the happier I'll be. The best thing of all about it is that I can get Internet telephone calls on my laptop. VoIP works just the same as at home, so I can talk to my colleague Andy without running up any call charges, and when clients call me on the same number as usual, they get me – no fiddling about with call divert. I can plug in my headset, listen to iTunes while I work, and switch to voice calls when I need to. It's the perfect mobile office.
Except when, in my haste to take advantage of those great new fares, I failed to notice that I'd been booked into the Quiet Coach. The Quiet Coach is like the Naughty Step of train travel, and once you're sent to it you have to sit still, be quiet and think about what you want to say to mummy when you're allowed off. Merely typing too loudly can provoke a rash of tutting from your neighbours, and any kind of phone conversation is a no-no. So it was that I found myself this week in the rather less than professional surroundings of the end-of-carriage corridor, perched on a tip-up seat and trying my best, while chatting gaily on VoIP to the IT director whose meeting I was on the way to attend, not to sound like I was clinging on for dear life at every bend in the track.
On the plus side, I did have a lot more legroom than Stelios ever gave me.