I DECIDED to pop in to Wycombe Sports Centre for an hour at noon on Friday to see how my reporters were doing at the local election count.

Thought I’d have a relaxing lunch there, chinwag with a few politicians and then make my excuses and leave. I’d even told Mrs Editor’s Chair I wouldn’t be late.

In fact, I didn’t make it home until 9pm after being caught up in the drama of a fascinating day of results.

And, what’s more, I found myself immersed in this new twitter medium which I’d previously rubbished, but which proved utterly absorbing.

The Bucks Free Press and the Star had set up a ‘live election module’ to allow reporters to send a running stream of commentary to our website.

Basically, you type in a quick comment, stick your initials beside it and press the enter key. It then appears live to the world in time order next to comments from readers and other journalists.

I’d got used to following football scores this way on the BBC, so I decided to give it a go myself and pushed one of my reporters off our laptop.

Several hours later, I was still there, on the press bench, putting up comments and news as it happened. Whenever a result was announced, I made it my personal mission to get it online before it hit the Wycombe District Council website.

I also interviewed several politicians and whacked their comments and speculation up straight away.

For a journalist, it’s brilliant but terrifying. Stories that you’d normally spend hours considering or agonising over go up instantly. And once they’re online, you can’t pull them back.

But what’s more gratifying is that readers can take part as well.

One asked where the results for Micklefield were and I was able to immediately tell him, and the world, we were sending a reporter to find out.

My main criticism of myself was the number of typing errors I made in my haste to get the comments up as fast as possible. I’m told people understand this but it’s not really acceptable for a journalist, so I promise to do better in future.

But what gratified me the most was the amount of nice comments from readers at the end thanking us for our live stream of coverage. More than 3,000 people stayed with us for this running commentary.

As I said, I was previously not a fan of this type of journalism but Friday changed my mind because it made the election process so much more accessible to the world. However, one thing baffles me still. I have been covering elections for around 25 years and yet the process has got slower.

I recall one poll a quarter of a century ago in which we took along a new-fangled invention called a mobile phone. It was the size of an oak tree and we had to carry power packs with us to recharge it.

We still didn’t get a signal to the office from it, so it was a waste of time.

However, conversely, the election results were out on the same day of the poll – about four hours later. All these years later, and we find it takes almost 24 hours (the Micklefield result came in at about 9pm after several recounts) to get results in a world which is meant to be more efficient and faster.

So, in conclusion, I love all this new technology and believe everyone should embrace it. But has the world got faster? You’re having a laugh if you think the answer’s yes.