If I was not supposed to be writing a article about a particular brand of watch here, I would be tempted to change the title to “It’s About Time”. Mind you, that might be a bit misleading. After all, loads of people from all walks of life say that “time is your most valuable resource”; and not just because “life is short”.
But there seems to be something about people that makes them particularly proud of their timepiece specimens. When the Ancient Greeks erected Stonehenge in 850 BC, I guess it was only a matter of time before someone realised that the sacred location originally designated as Tutankhamun’s burial ground could be re-constructed in such a way that it would serve as a giant sundial; and even all these years later nothing has changed. The British Parlament gathers at Westminster, which also “just happens to be” the home of Big Ben (which is, of course, no casual name). The Swiss are famous for their ornately carved cuckoo clocks. And I learned from nothing other than a freebie that came with a men’s magazine, that about the only reason to visit Honduras, is to see the oldest clock in the world, housed in the cathedral at Comayagua, made over 800 years ago by the Moors and donated to the town by King Phillip of Spain.
This fetichistic state of enamouredness about the things that we tell the time with, manifests itself every bit as much in watches and mobile clocks as it does in clocks that are, quite simply, too big to be portable. The truth is that the fad seems farther than ever from dying out in the present moment; judging by the fact that there exist watches that are especially for women or especially for men. And just when you thought watchmakers could not get any more ostentatious than including day and date trackers and hour,...
