localhost blocked when no internet connection

I have just noticed that when I lose my connection I not only can't get on the Internet (of course), but I can't access a website on my localhost either! Why the @!*£!& should localhost be affected by the connection when it's on my local machine? Is there something I can change so I can continue web development work without being connected? I'm using Windows Vista Business.

I should also mention that my localhost is a Ravenswood Joomla Server, which is running a Apache/PHP/mySQL environment on Windows.