[Hampshire] Simple network link monitor

I'm looking for something that can report lack of connectivity to a remote
IP address. I only need a simple text report along the lines of:

Link to xxx down 12 Jan 2008, 08:51 - 08:59

I'm happy to cobble something together in Bash or Python, but I suspect
it's been done already. I don't mind a more complex tool so long as it can
give me the simple report as above.

Reason: unreliable Internet connectivity, and I want to gather some data.
I don't have access to the router.

Thanks,
Keith