Every now and again, an email will ping into my inbox. This email will be from the novelist Jenny Colgan, and its subject line will be something along the lines of "Give me an 'S'… Give me a 'C'… Give me an 'R'…", and it will cause my heart to leap with joy.

For it will presage an evening of red wine, takeaway pizza and intimate relaxation with a handful of like-minded friends in her discreet Fleet Street flat. We might chew qat until we get xi. Those of us with an ax to grind will do so, ideally in two directions. Others work on the flow of their qi. Sometimes, someone will show us his SOWPODS. Oh yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

Not so. Cyber-scrabble is on the march. Only two months after the launch on the social networking site Facebook of an application called Scrabulous - which allows you to play with your friends online - 200,000 people are reported to have signed up.