[Twisted-Python] How to send a UDP datagram

[Drake Smith]

Can somebody please show me the Twisted way to send a simple UDP datagram? 
 From the examples, I see how to transport.write in response to receiving a 
datagram or in response to establishing a UDP "connection". But in my 
application, I'd like to send datagrams blindly, say, to initiate a 
heartbeat message or to stream audio samples without acknowledgement via an 
unconnected UDP socket. I'd also like to do this from a function that is 
not wrapped inside a Twisted protocol class as such, unless that is 
contrary to the Twisted approach.

I am using Twisted version 2.0.1/Python 2.4 on a Linux box. Thank you.