Still Here, Just Busy & Uninspired - Part 1 | 6:07pm, Sunday July 14th, 2019

Haven't posted since late April. Work has been busy and I've felt less inclined to get on the computer to write something in long-form after spending all day in front of a computer.

Anyway, here I be and it's been a busy couple of months. Quick recap, and I'll intersperse a few pics of the watches that I wore. 'Cos that's how I roll;

It was time to begin selling some stuff on eBay. First cab off the rank was the Seiko 7002. It sold, but the winning bidder soon contacted me to say that a personal emergency had come up and he/she wouldn't be able to pay for the item. No problem. I offered it to the next highest bidder, but got no reply from them. So, back up for auction it went. It ended up selling for about twenty bucks less than the original sale, but that didn't matter. I wasn't planning on retiring on the funds from this sale. I just wanted to sell the watch. So, that's one down.

Went to the doctor for a routine blood test last month. I got tested a few years ago and was found to have a low white blood-cell count. Was referred to a haematologist who told me that I probably had nothing to worry about, as he received four or five patients a week with low white cell counts and it was nothing to concern myself with. Apparently, it's common with people of African descent.

Was there something that my Mother never told me?

He took a sample and told me that I'd get a call a few days later if any abnormalities were found.

I never got the call.

This time around, the cell count was not the issue, but my cholesterol level was at 4.8, which I was told is considered towards the higher end of the spectrum.

"No fried food, no processed meats, that means not salami, prosciutto, eat less meat, no cheese, do you eat a lot of cheese?", the doctor asked me. She was a new one that I hadn't dealt with before. Had an accent that was a mix of French and Spanish. Turns our her Mother was Spanish and her Father was Brazilian.

"Oh, and cut out salt and sugar", she added.

Christ, what does that leave me to eat, I wondered. Celery!?

She took my blood pressure. One-twenty over seventy. Nothing to worry about there. Then she checked my height; five-ten and a half.

"You're the same height as I am", she stated.

I looked down at her feet.

"Yeah, but I'm not wearing my heels today", I answered.

I wore the Omega Speedmaster sometime in May. That's a Nique jacket in the photo. My wife is always on the lookout for clothes for me whenever she visits a thrift store. I never tend to have the same kind of luck whenever I visit the thrifts.* This one's a grey wool with surgeon's cuffs (the buttons can be undone) and it's a nice warm jacket to wear in the office when the air conditioning - an ongoing saga - tends to cool the room down a little too aggressively on colder days. I think the thermostat has a mind of its own and is trying to freeze us all to death.

The doctor then arranged for me to have an ECG test. Man, I just wanted to get my blood test results. And a 'flu shot, if possible. Five minutes later, I'm in the Pathology room next door to her office. I remove my shirt and the doctor walks in and quickly gives me a 'flu shut before I lie down on the examination table and the nurse shaves little squares of hair off my chest. 

Man, I hope this is part of the procedure, I thought to myself. Well, I didn't really, but it plays better that way.

The nurse attached the adhesives to my chest and under my left ribs and then hooked up the electrodes, or whatever the kids are calling those things these days.
I lay there for a few minutes, wondering how late for work I was gonna be. I told them that I had the blood test and would be coming in about half an hour later than usual, but this ECG test would throw a small spanner into the works. No major drama.
The ECG test over, I put my shirt back on, and a few minutes later, the doctor came in and took a look over the print-out of the ECG results.
A slight heart murmur showed on the print-out at one point. But it's not anything major. She told me to make another blood test appointment for a month later, to see if my cholesterol level drops.
All good. I thanked her for her time, headed out to reception, paid for the (long) consultation and then got into my car and headed to work.

I got myself a new hat in May. This one is an Akubra 'Hampton' in what they call 'Carbon Grey'. It's a trilby design, which means it has a narrower brim. This one measures 48mm. My other two fedoras have 64mm brims which, coupled with my narrow shoulders, give the slight impression of them being oversized for my build. Although, that's never really bothered me. This new trilby has more of a 'circa 1960/ Mad Men / Blues Brothers' kind of vibe, and it has come in very handy on rainy days this winter so far. I wore the Omega Railmaster quite a bit throughout May and June.

Work has been very busy in recent months. So much so that the watchmaker has gone in on a couple of weekends here and there to deal with the backlog of repairs. As such, this has meant that I got busier when it came to finalising these completed repairs and booking them out, updating the database, taking photos, processing invoices and shipping them out. No problem, as long as I wasn't distracted by other stuff going on in the office.

Been on a slight buying spree on eBay lately. Having sold a couple of my lower-end watches, I figured I could spend some of the earnings on other stuff. Things like watch straps, short charging cables for my phone, etc.

One extravagance, though, was this Nikon EM 35mm SLR camera. Some of you may recall that I already had one of these a while ago, but ended up selling it for some reason. I think it was shortly after I got myself an Olympus OM2n and felt that I'd be using that camera more than this one.
However, there's something appealing about using an automatic camera and so, I began reading a few reviews of the EM and then I hit eBay. Picked up the body of this one for around thirty-seven bucks - which I thought was a steal - and then a 50mm prime lens a week later for just under eighty dollars. I also got some of these decorative fairy lights that you thread into an empty bottle to make a soft lamp.
I loaded up the camera with some 125 ASA Ilford black & white film and I'm gonna try to become a better photographer. I plan to jot down shutter speed and aperture info prior to taking a photo, in an effort to get a better grip on taking decent pictures. Modern batteries no longer use mercury oxide in them and these old film cameras can tend to give a slightly incorrect shutter speed reading as a result. From what I've read - and please correct me if I'm wrong - you need to compensate for this by altering the shutter speed or aperture setting prior to taking the shot.
Anyway, only one true way for me to find out. Unless I Google the information, that is.

I wore the circa 1996 Oris Big Crown Pointer Date Small Seconds in May. I love how the dial has four different textures on it. Along with the date numerals along the outer edge, the sub-seconds dial, and the hour numerals, there's a lot going on with this dial and yet it's clearly legible. 

Okay, y'all, that's the first catch-up installment done.  I'll work on another one this coming week.
I hope you've all been well, and thanks for reading!

Sunday, April 28th, 2019 - Goodnight Bond Girls | Bondian Rhapsody & Recent Wristwatches

Hey all, I've been back from my recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City and I'm slowly working on a post about that. 

In the meantime, I've been busy back at work. Repairs kept coming in while I was away and then the watchmaker went on annual leave. 

I got back to a mountain of e-mails and completed repairs to send out and then, once the watchmaker got back from his trip, he hit the ground running and churned out more completed repairs. 

Needless to say, it's been hella busy at work for the past month. There were a few days when I felt absolutely swamped, but the only way out, is through, as they say, so I just buckled myself in to my office chair and plowed on. 

Still not out of the woods yet, but I have things back under some modicum of control. 

Recent weeks have seen the passing of two ladies who appeared in a couple of early Connery Bond films. 

Tania Mallet was an English model who starred as Tilly Masterson in Goldfinger in 1964. She first appears in the film behind the wheel of the newly-released Ford Mustang convertible, following Auric Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce Phantom III down a long and winding road through the Swiss Alps. Bond is also shadowing Goldfinger's car and Tilly is seen as a hindrance to his mission, as she has intentions of killing Goldfinger to avenge the death of her sister, Jill, who was memorably dispatched by henchman Oddjob early in the film. 

It's a short role that she has in the movie, but a memorable one. 

In 2009, Octane, a car magazine, decided to recreate this chase in the Swiss Alps, and staged a photo-shoot featuring the Bond Aston Martin DB5, the Mustang convertible and Rolls-Royce. For this endeavour, they enlisted the services of 67 year old Tania Mallet, reenacting some frames as they appeared in the original film. Pretty cool. 

Black & white photo above, courtesy of Vanity Fair.com.

Colour photo here, along with the rest of the shoot,  courtesy of Facebook.com | Octane magazine

A week after Mallet's passing, we learned of the death of another actress from Goldfinger, Nadja Regin, who appears in the classic pre-credits sequence as a night-club dancer attempting to distract Bond while a thug approaches them from behind. It's a slightly improbable scene, but it's a Bond film, after all. 

Regin also appeared in From Russia, With Love the year before, as the girlfriend of Bond's contact in Istanbul, Kerim Bey. 

Continuing with Bond news, we finally got an announcement this week about the next OO7 adventure, currently known only as 'Bond 25'. All we know of the plot is that Bond is enjoying a retirement in Jamaica - presumably with Madeleine Swann, his love interest from his last outing SPECTRE -  when he is contacted by his CIA buddy Felix Leiter and asked to assist in rescuing a kidnapped scientist. 

Meanwhile, the villain, to be played by Rami Malek, fresh from his Oscar-winning turn as Freddie Mercury in last year's Bohemian Rhapsody, has access to some terrifying new weapon. 

I got a little bit peeved when I read this. My own Bond script, that I've been working on sporadically for years now, has a similar story-line involving a scientist and a terrifying new weapon. 

Remember that post I wrote ages ago about the advice my old boss at the movie bookstore once gave me?; If you have an idea for a movie, start writing because there's somebody out there with the same idea and they're already sitting down at a computer and writing it." 

Ahh, well, let's wait and see. Not much to do until April 2020 when the movie is released. 

I hope it makes up for SPECTRE.

And one more bit of Bond news, I snagged a 1st edition hardback copy of Fleming's last OO7 novel, The Man With The Golden Gun. This is one of the titles that featured Richard Chopping's evocative artwork.
Published in 1965, this story sees our man Bond recovering from being brainwashed by the Russians and given a last chance by his boss M to redeem himself by going after Paco 'Pistols' Scaramanga, a master assassin.
Basically, it's nothing like the film, which I consider a low-point in the series.

I also have a reprint copy of From Russia, With Love incoming. I bought one some years ago and it turned out to have a facsimile of the original cover art.
The eBay Seller buried this information in the long-winded listing and I didn't see it before I tapped on "Buy It Now". Basically, the dust-jacket of that book was a 'high quality reproduction of the original'. Let's not beat around the bush here. It was a friggin' colour photocopy.
So, I think I'll be listing it on eBay soon, with a low 'Buy It Now' price, but I will clearly mention that the dust-jacket is not original.

On the wristwatch front, I took the Camy Club-Star hand-wound and the Oris Diver Sixty-Five on the trip to Vietnam. It was very hot in Ho Chi Minh City during our stay. I wore the Oris for the most part, but switched to the Camy for some of the evenings when my wife and I went out to grab a drink. 

On the third morning, though, I put the Camy on my wrist and went down to the buffet for breakfast. Afterwards, we headed out as the weather began to warm up. 

After about half an hour in the heat, I looked at the watch and noticed that the crystal (the glass) looked a little hazy. 

Sure enough, it appeared that some condensation had formed inside the watch. This can happen if you take a watch from a cool climate (the bed-side table in our hotel room) into a warm climate (outside in Saigon in March) in a short space of time. The watch heats up too quickly and condensation forms on the inside of the crystal. Mind you, this will usually happen to a watch that is not water-proof.

The haze faded as the morning wore on. Later in the day, I decided to switch to the Oris, for peace of mind. 

I didn't buy anything of note while away. I thought I'd perhaps get a new Hamilton Khaki Field watch if I saw a certain model that I'd been casually contemplating for over a year. I already have a Hamilton Khaki Officers Mechanical that I bought back in 2010;

But in recent years, as I've come to acknowledge that my wrists can only take watches up to a certain size, my tastes have shifted back towards smaller watches that are better suited to me. 

So, this Hamilton would be going and it would be replaced by a smaller version. Alas, I didn't find what I was looking for in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, so once we got back, I spent another week thinking it over before deciding on the Hamilton Khaki Field Automatic, in the 40mm size;

Sure, it still has a slight, over-sized feel to it, but it certainly sits better on my wrist than the 44mm model up above. 

Hamilton supplied watches to the US military in WWII right through to the Vietnam conflict, so this is a brand that has more military watch history and credibility than some others that make the claim. 

I opted for the model which has a beige/off-white lume on the hands and dial. This gives the watch a lived-in look. The suede strap is beige as well and while I'm not a huge fan of it, it actually suits the watch very well and I can easily replace it with an after-market one at some point. At the time of writing, the watch has had a few strap changes already in the two weeks since I got it and it's currently wearing a black, minimal-stitch leather band of questionable quality. 

I may leave it on this strap to really wear it in. This particular model houses the H10 Calibre movement. It's been used in a few other Swatch Group brands. Its main claim to fame is the power reserve. Fully wound, this watch is meant to last 80 hours. That's a whole weekend, folks, and then some!

To test it out, I gave it forty or fifty winds by hand on a Saturday morning and then I put the watch in my desk drawer.

On the Tuesday a few days later, I decided to wear the watch to work and sure enough, it was still running. That was already around 70 hours. 

Most automatic watches in this price range will have a power reserve of around 38 to 42 hours. 

As I say, 80 hours is a whole weekend, making this an ideal Mon-Fri wristwatch. Take it off on Friday night after work and it'll still be ticking on Monday morning. With a sapphire crystal and 100 metres water-resistance, it's a nice bang-for-buck watch. If it has any short-comings, it would be the lack of anti-reflective coating on the crystal (as evidenced in the photos) and the luminous compound on the dial and hands which doesn't last all night long.
But that's okay. In this price range, there's a lot to love about it.

In other watch news, I've reached a point where I want to clear out watches that don't get much time on the wrist. The large Hamilton watch mentioned above is currently on eBay with a few hours left to go. By the time you read this, it will have sold to a happy new owner, since that watch is in very, very good condition.
I have a few other pieces that I'm gonna shift, and those listings should be well underway as you read this.

One of them is the Dan Henry Compressor 1970 that I bought on a whim in 2017. It's a very well-made watch, but I found that whenever I wore it, I'd be wishing that I'd worn something else.
As such, it spent more time in the watch box that it should have. I think I wore it five or six times at the most, and even then, it was safely tucked under a shirt cuff. As a result, it has not a mark on it and should make its new owner very happy. If it sells, that is.
Another one set to go is the Seiko 7002 that I bought some time ago and then had modified by a watchmaker.

This watch became the 'beater', the watch that I'd wear for handyman duties and gardening. It served me well, but since I already have another Seiko dive watch that could be used in its place, I see no point in holding on to this one.
I bought a couple of different dials for this watch and mixed & matched them over the years. I'll include those parts with the watch when I sell it. Somebody will get themselves a nice watch to wear or a special little project if they decide to modify the watch further.

That's the beauty of these Seiko dive watches. There are a few sellers that specialise in after-market parts for them, and you can customise these watches to your heart's content. The trap, of course, is that you can buy one of these watches reasonably cheaply and then spend a few hundred dollars on parts and watchmaker's labour to change them up to how you want. Still, some of the results can be pretty cool.

There are other watches that I'd like to shift, but this will require a little more thought.
I had a Seiko Samurai dive watch that I got about ten years ago for $450.oo. I sold it three years ago for $950.oo. Nice little profit, without a doubt. I see them now selling on eBay for close to two grand.
You just never quite know what's going to climb in value and what's not, when it comes to wristwatches. Taking aside your juggernaut brands like Rolex, it's hard to tell if demand for a particular model from a particular brand will increase as the years roll on. Still, I've learned not to look back. Once it's sold, it's sold.

I'll also be reviewing my cameras and fountain pens, and then later my typewriters. Now, I'm not going all Marie Kondo here. I'm not getting rid of this stuff because it doesn't 'spark joy'. I'm getting rid of it to free up space, in both my home and my mind.
There are some items in each of these collections that seldom see the light of day, and I'd rather end up with a tighter collection that gets regular use. A collection that bears the marks and wear of having been handled and used as intended.

Is it true that Albert Einstein had a closet full of brown plaid jackets because, as he put it, he didn't want to waste thinking time and energy on deciding what to wear each morning?
Makes perfect sense to me. 

Anyway, that's where I'm at for the moment. Hope you're all well, and thanks for reading!

Monday March 25th, 2019 - Negronis & Americanos | Counting Down the Days | Packing Bags | & Recent Wristwatches

I wore the Submariner earlier this month.

Hawkins took off his glasses and placed them next to his wristwatch. He rubbed his eyes briefly, then began to mix a fifth gin and tonic. As he slowly built the drink in the heavy crystal glass, he glanced over at Smiley. "The real problem with this vocation, George, is that it begins with a small lie, a slightly blurred version of oneself. And then, over time, the lies become greater and a larger version emerges."
He paused to cut a small lime. Holding the wedge over the glass, he gave it a gentle squeeze. Smiley watched as a few drops of juice bled into the glass. Hawkins was meticulous with his libations. A little too much so. 
Satisfied with the amount of citrus in the drink, he dropped the misshapen wedge into the glass and reached for the tonic. The bottle cap gave a half-hearted hiss as he twisted it open. He topped off the drink, raised it to his mouth and took a tentative sip.
Smiley lowered his glasses a little, closed his eyes and gave the bridge of his nose a slight pinch. Hawkins could be tiresome when lubricated. "Is there a point to this, Bill?", he asked with slight irritation.
"My point is", continued Hawkins, "a larger version emerges, and the half truths, broken promises and blatant betrayals take their toll and slowly erode all thoughts of Queen and Country. It becomes a game, and by the end of it, you can't recall where the truth ended and the lies began. By then, it's time to get out of the Circus. Of course, it's all too late by that stage, isn't it?"
Hawkins took a sip of the drink, looking at Smiley over the rim of the glass. 
Smiley looked back at him, his face giving nothing away.

**************************************************************

Gave the Moonwatch a bit of a run. This watch poses a bit of a conundrum for Omega. As the brand continues to move further upmarket by releasing new models with improved and more advanced in-house movements, the Speedmaster Professional must remain unchanged, in order to hold onto its "Flight-qualified for all manned space missions" qualification. NASA still uses this watch in its current form, with a movement and technologies that have remained virtually unchanged since the early 1970s. 

In an era of scratch-resistant sapphire crystals and automatic calibres with silicon hairsprings, this watch is an anachronism. Certainly, it's proven itself over the decades and it has a legion of fans, but I'm sure Omega would love to make changes to this watch in some major ways, in order to bring it in line with the rest of its catalogue. 

However, those collectors who love this watch would like it to stay exactly as it is. 

I'm one of them. 

Despite its old-fashioned tech, it's got a coolness factor that's through the roof. And whereas its competitors from the 1960s were either phased out of production as years went by, or were modified and upgraded to the point where they now no longer resemble the models they were based on, the Speedmaster Professional looks very much today like it did in 1965 when this iteration was released. 

And it still does exactly what it's supposed to do.

I've always loved this photo of author Joan Didion, taken by Julian Wasser in 1970. It's so evocative of the era. Admittedly, I've never read any of her works, but had some idea of her place in literature through Vanity Fair magazine, where her husband John Gregory Dunne and brother-in-law Dominick Dunne featured regularly.

Friday, March 22nd

I've been nipping into some slightly more exotic drinks lately, to add a little variety to the standard gin & tonics that have been fueling me all Summer.
The Negroni is the drink-of-the-moment. I decided to find out what all the fuss was about. Sure, I've had them before and made my fair share of them back in my bar-tending days, but that was a long time ago.

I gathered the ingredients together and then busted out the old bakelite cocktail shaker that my wife got years ago from a thrift store. This was a drink that would require some shaking. And a lot of ice.

While I would love to say that I was working from memory, it's been so long since I mixed drinks that I had to consult my old cocktail recipe books.  



Although, the Negroni is a simple drink to prepare.


Once done, I took a tentative sip and wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Took another sip before taking it outside to sit on a bench in the shade.
It's a tad sweeter than I prefer a drink to be, but it wasn't bad. I could see why it was popular.

I then decided to sift through some of my old recipe books to get a couple of other classics, those drinks that I saw on menus of places where I worked back in the late '80s and early '90s. I didn't tend bar for too long, about a couple of years.
Back then, though, the cocktail was back in vogue, so I spent my time preparing exotic stuff like Fluffy Ducks, Banana Daiquiries, Flaming Lamborghinis (yes, you have to set it alight with a match) and Long Island Iced Teas.

Don't let that last one fool you. Despite its genteel-sounding name, it basically consists of equal measures of four white spirits, Vodka, Tequila, White Rum and Gin, with Triple Sec, lemon juice and, if you can fit it in the ice-filled highball glass with all that stuff, as much Coca-Cola as you can get in there.
I've had one in my lifetime. Back in '86. I can't remember what happened after I threw up later on.

Anyway, I looked through some books and decided to try an Americano, since this drink has some soda water in it.

The Americano cocktail packs less of a punch than a Negroni. This can be a good thing, making for a nice Summer drink. A couple of sips and this became a new favourite. The recipe on the flip-side basically doubles the amounts of the Campari and Vermouth. That recipe was out of The New International Bartender's Guide (Random House, 1984), so it pre-dates the resurgence in cocktail popularity by a few years.

Hell, I'm low on soda water. Better fix that.


Saturday, March 23rd

Finished up at work yesterday afternoon. Happy to report that I tied up as many loose ends as possible. It'll be interesting to see what awaits me upon my return. Although, no point thinking about work for the time being. I got bags to pack.

My wife and I will be jetting out on Tuesday for Ho Chi Minh City for five days of doing as little as possible. Sure, we'll soak up some of the sights, but we really plan on not straying too far from the hotel. It's been a very busy couple of years for us. We took that trip to Europe back in September 2016 and we figured we were due for a short break.

I might try posting some short despatches while I'm away, but I'm not sure. I may be too relaxed or having to much fun to do so.
If I do post, they will be very short, since I'll be using the iPod or iPad for them. Our man in Saigon, as it were. I'll be channeling a mix of 1950s William Holden, jaded ex-pat journalist, and Graham Greene minus the literary talent.

Holy Mackerel, I just did a Google search on 'How to Cross the Road in Ho Chi Minh City'. This is gonna be interesting.
Okay, I just got back from my phone service provider. I wanted to set up international roaming with my mobile phone while I'm away.
Once again, they were no help. I gotta change phone companies. But first, I think I'll have a drink.

Over and out, for now.


Sunday, March 24th

 
Spent the morning and early afternoon packing my bag for the trip. My wife and I are trying to avoid the usual mistake of packing more than we need. We'll be away for six days, not six months, after all.

I think that, rather than pack more clothing than I might actually use, I may pack a little less and make use of the hotel's laundry service. Might just have a couple of shirts and pants washed and pressed if I need to.
I guess I just haven't traveled enough to be seasoned at it.
I got some Australian Dollars converted over to Vietnamese Dong. Fifty bucks works out to seven hundred thousand Dong.
Mathematics was never my strong point, so my wife and I will work on a self-created exchange rate of one Australian Dollar equals 15,000 Dong.
A quick check of XE.com shows this;

As we've always done, we'll underestimate how far our dollar goes. Less of a shock on our return that way.
Okay, it's now 8:30pm Sunday night. That's all for now. I'll wrap this post up tomorrow.

Monday, March 25th

Okay, home stretch. Bags are packed, and everything else is in place. The bank knows that we'll be overseas, we've got various charging cords packed, our contact details are up to date, and our flight and hotel bookings are confirmed.

As far as watches are concerned, I'll be wearing the Oris Diver SixtyFive for the most part, since it's water-resistant and can handle some abuse, and I'll also take along something a little simpler and dressier, for the evenings - the Camy Club-Star on the steel Speidel Twis-O-Flex expanding bracelet.
Both watches feature the date, which is handy. Reason being, on our last trip - the one to Europe - I took photos on certain days and when we got back and began sorting them out, the time difference meant that the pics were out of sync with the days on which they were taken. According to the camera's date settings,  photos taken in Rome on Wednesday the 14th would be dated by the camera as having been  taken on Thursday the 15th because the camera was set to date and time in Melbourne, Australia back when I bought it and input the settings. Since we are ten hours ahead of Europe, this skewed the dates.
So, this time around, the first photo I take on each day of the trip will be of my wristwatch dial, showing the date. Vietnam is only four hours behind Australia, so it won't be a major issue, but I figure I might as well get into the habit.

And there we have it, gang. It's now six-thirty pm in my neck of the woods and dinner is in the oven. Chicken Kiev, in case you're wondering.We're at the tail-end of Summer here in Melbourne and it rained heavily overnight, followed by a sunny day with high winds. It's actually a little nippy outside right now. Good time to get away to somewhere warmer. Extend our Summer a little.

As mentioned, I may post up short posts during the trip. Although, since the aim of this holiday is to do as little as possible, I may not come anywhere near this blog. We'll see.
First of all, I gotta figure out how to get across a road in Ho Chi Minh City.

Thanks for reading, and take care, all!

Sunday, March 3rd, 2019 - Busy Times | The Heat's Still On | Thanks For the Charade, Mr Donen & Recent Wristwatches

I wore the Omega  Seamaster Planet Ocean. It's been some time since I last wore this watch. I may have mentioned this already at some point in recent months, but I'll say it again for the sake of posterity. I've reached a point in my watch collecting life where I have a clearer understanding of the kind of wristwatches that I tend to favour. It would seem that I have a real soft spot for dive watches. 

Strange, considering that I don't dive. It's probably due to seeing my first Bond movie at an impressionable age - I've stated that before - , but I think I've found over the years that a good dive watch tends to be both robust and legible, and also has enough water-resistance for anything from a half-hour at the sink to a day at the beach. 

While most brands began increasing the size of their watches over the last fifteen years or so, I'm glad to see a gradual shift back towards smaller sizes closer to what was produced in days gone by. This opens up the choices for a guy like me, who has a six-point-five inch wrist. 

At any rate, this recent realisation for me will help towards thinning down the collection a little. That's the plan, anyway.

I switched over to the Rolex Submariner 5513 earlier this week, in the last few days of February. This Graham Greene biography arrived in the mail. I've been wanting to read it since the early 1990s. Written by Norman Sherry, the Professor of Literature at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, this is the first volume of a staggering work on the life of Greene.
Sherry met with Greene on numerous occasions and, throughout the writing of these volumes, he followed in Greene's footsteps, traveling to the same places throughout the world that Greene went to, in an effort to better understand the man, and to speak with those who had met him.
This book will take some commitment. Given its length, it only covers the first 35 years of Greene's life.



My views probably began to change in 2016, when we lost Prince, David Bowie, and George Michael all way too soon. As far as I'm concerned, they still had much to give.

So basically, if somebody in the public eye has lived a long and fruitful life and they check out at the age of, say, 85 or 90, I don't tend to mourn them too deeply.
I raise a glass to them, thank them for their efforts, and wish comfort for those they leave behind.

I wanted to reply to comments made about my previous post, but time got away from me. So...

1. Steve K17 February 2019 at 04:00       Wonder if J.D. was ever a hand model. You upuld have that in common Tee.

   
   

                                                    I suppose that's something, yes. 
   
   
2. Joe V17 February 2019 at 06:47    Another great article. I like how you often start out so humble, but before you know it there's some great content to read, along with pictures. Well done, keep at it.
   
   I wonder if your hot summer in December is a harbinger of our coming summer in the southwest US ? Probably no connection, climate-wise. Last summer we didn't get too many days above 100f here in Albuquerque, but being a mile in elevation it does cool down at nights, making for some nice summer evenings on the patio. Stay well.

   
   

                                                    Thanks, JVC. Whenever I begin these posts, I have to wonder if anything of any great import has occurred that week. Of course, I'm no longer posting on a weekly basis, which would mean that there's more to write about, but it seems life is less interesting than it used to be, perhaps? 

   This Summer here in Melbourne seems to have been a late one. We had some scorchers early on, that's for sure, but we've had a consistent run of hot days over the past month or so. Ahh well, it'll be over in about a month or so, so I may ass well enjoy it wherever I can.

   
   
3. Bill M17 February 2019 at 09:00       Dead birds as rewards (I guess). I had a Rottie that used to like to bring me her dead triumphs as a gift or reward.
   
   If you want some cold. we've been braving -15F and similar for the past week or two. If the pattern from Oz and here reverses for our summer we will be in for some unusually hot weather.
   
   It's nice you got your glasses exchanged. I had a dreadful pair of multi-focal lenses one time. Most of the time though I do like them more than regular bifocals.
   
   Hope you have a great week and enjoy driving the newly repaired car.

   
   

                                                       Yeah, Bill, I once read that cats bringing in dead animals is their idea of a gift. I also read that it's their way of showing us how to hunt. 'Cos they think we're dummies.

   
   

   Not sure I could handle -15F. Lowest it ever gets here in Winter is maybe 2 degrees Celsius, and that's in the early hours of the morning.

   
   

   I never got used to the multi-focal lenses. On a small rectangular lens, it felt like there was too much going on, with different focal points. And yes, I'm glad I was able to get them changed over without any fuss. 

   
   

   And yep, it was good to get the car back. 

   
   

   Thank-you all for your comments!
   
   

   

   
   

   

   
   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

   

   I'm still wearing the Omega Planet Ocean. Given the weather we've had, it seemed easier to just leave this watch on, since it can handle perspiration, water, kitchen-sink and gardening duties (not that I've gone anywhere near the garden this weekend).
   

   

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Le Carre once stated in an interview that the inner workings of MI5 were very similar to the way in which the hierarchy of a large business corporation operates. The same back-stabbing and skullduggery occurs, as department heads attempt to work their way up in the intelligence organisation, with little regard for colleagues.
   This may be why I found his books a little too heavy-going when I was a teenager reading Fleming's Bond books.
   
   Anyway, it's now 12:22pm on Sunday afternoon. Time to get a move-on with the rest of the day. My wife and I just need to plow on through the next few weeks and then we'll be off overseas for a week.
   More about that as it draws closer.
   
   Thanks for reading and have a great week ahead, folks!

Sunday, February 17th, 2019 - Forgotten Posts / Record Heatwaves / Back to the Books / Man, What a Voice! & Recent Wristwatches

Hmm, it would appear that I started this typecast post in the last few days of December last year and then never got around to finishing or posting it up.
Ahh well, here it is. I wasn't going to bother, but since I spent the time and energy typing it out, I figured I'd better not waste it. 

I rearranged the shelves in the spare room. This room still has boxes filled with stuff that I haven't unpacked since we moved into this house in September 2015. 

I think I should do something about that. 

Looking at my typewriters, I notice a few that I could probably do without. I have thirteen of them and I think I'm gonna try getting them down to ten or so. 

To be honest, I'm finding it hard to get motivated to write the copy, take photos, etc, for the eBay listings, but in an effort to de-clutter, I'm just gonna have to sit down and get started. I've been saying it for too long - and this blog is littered with statements about de-cluttering- so I think I should just bite the bullet and get it done. 

There. I'll say no more about it. 
Till it's done. 

I wore these two watches for most of the week;

The Submariner was worn early on, but I soon created a list of chores for myself during my time off from work, so I switched over to the Omega Railmaster on a minimal-stitch leather strap.

I have to say that the leather is not very pliable on this strap, which made for a very uncomfortable fit and feel during the warmer days this week. 

I've since put the watch back onto its steel bracelet. I think steel is a better option for Summer, since water and perspiration over the warmer months can tend to wear down a leather strap faster than would happen at any other time of year.

AND THAT'S AS FAR AS I GOT WITH THAT POST.

Anyway, it's now Sunday, February 3rd and we've just experienced the hottest January temperatures on record. Yeah. On record.
It's currently 36 degrees C.
The temps have crept up to the high 30s on and off over the past few weeks and we had a four or five day spell where it got to between 38 and 42 degrees Celsius. A quick Fahrenheit conversion turns those numbers into 100.4 and 107.6. Yikes!
Okay, the wife and I just got back from a quick workout at the gym. Since writing the above paragraph about an hour ago, the temperature has climbed up a couple of notches to 38 degrees.
Tomorrow is shaping up to be another hot one.

Monday February 11th, 8:00pm
                                                    Where the hell is this post going!? Let me check the photos that I've taken over the past couple of weeks. That oughta' jog my memory.
Ahh, okay, I remember now.

I had multi-focal lenses fitted to these Tom Ford frames a couple of weeks ago.
I had been on the hunt for a set of frames which had clip-on sun-glass lenses attached. I was aiming for a mid-Century aesthetic along the lines of James Dean's glasses. These Tom Ford frames are a honey-blonde shade. I would have preferred a darker shade of tortoise-shell, but considering this particular style has been discontinued for some time, I figure I was lucky to find these.
In a moment of weakness, I let the girl at the optometrists up-sell me to multi-focal lenses when I had actually planned to just get bi-focals. I just wanted glasses for driving and reading. She convinced me to go for an all-purpose lens that would be better for driving, reading AND being able to see the dashboard clearly.
Stupidly, I let myself get talked into it.
Anyway, fast-forward ten days later and I picked up these specs and wore them over the following week.
I hated 'em. Too much distortion in the periphery of my vision when driving, making it difficult to negotiate my driving in traffic where split-second decisions were concerned. Lane-changing meant taking an extra second or two to judge how close that motorcycle was to my rear right and how close that cyclist was to my rear left. And they were no good for wearing while working at the computer at work, as I found myself tilting my head a little too high to see the screen, since these lenses had three different focal points ground into them.

I went back to the optometrist over this past weekend and asked if I could switch them to basic bi-focals like I had originally planned. I was fully expecting to be further out of pocket. These multi-focals were the priciest lenses I had ever bought. Anti-reflective coating, anti-glare coating, etc had driven the price up on these.
Surprisingly, I was told that there was a warranty on the lenses and they would change them over to bi-focals at no charge and I still had a coupla' hundred bucks credit left over. This meant that I could get another set of frames fitted with reading lenses, to replace my older pair that sit on my bedside table.
Cool. They should be ready sometime next week.

Thinking about it now, I'll probably read another Follett book or two at some point. The bastard. Still, probably a better way to pass the time than Patterson's works.

Okay, wristwatch-wise,  I wore the Omega Railmaster, seen here back on its bracelet. I briefly began reading Graham Greene's The Quiet American, but then decided to hold off a little longer with it. I'm not in the right frame of mind for it just yet. 
Soon though. 

Man, this has turned into a very literary post. Hope you don't mind.

My son showed me some YouTube videos this past weekend featuring an outfit called Postmodern Jukebox. The brainchild of a fella named Scott Bradlee, they basically take modern songs and give 'em an old time spin. I spent an hour or so sifting through them and every singer has an absolutely extraordinary voice. 

A highlight is this pocket Venus named Haley Reinhart, who belts out a fantastic version of Radiohead's early '90s hit Creep. This dame's got a set of pipes on her you wouldn't believe. She's got a great repertoire of chanteuse moves as well, as she flits and flutters her hands as she sings with a husky voice which is at times raspy and at times blows the roof off. And the band is tight! There ain't a bum note in this gig. 

Here's the clip. You be the judge. Then check out her rendition of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun. And then look for Puddles Pity Party and his version of Lorde's Royal.

Warning- It could be addictive. See ya in a coupla' hours.

 

Postmodern Jukebox seems to have been kicking around for about three or four years, so I have to say I'm late to the party here. 

Either way, looks like I'm gonna be downloading off iTunes soon.

Here's the website, featuring the video clips, tour dates and downloads;

Scott Bradlee's PostModern Jukebox | Home 

I wore the Submariner at some point in the past few weeks;

And here comes another book. I picked up a First Edition Library version of Fleming's The Spy Who Loved Me. I had looked at pre-owned First Editions of this book, but their condition was less than stellar, unless I wanted to spend more than I was prepared to. The First Edition Library brought out the complete set of Bond novels in the early 1990s with reproductions of the original cover art. This one, along with From Russia, With Love, has perhaps the most evocative artwork of all the Bond novels which featured paintings by British artist Richard Chopping. 

First published in 1962, this was Fleming's attempt at writing a OO7 story from the Bond Girl's point of view. Hence, it is billed as 'written by Ian Fleming with Vivienne Michel'.

The story concerns a young woman with a past who checks in to a motor inn in Upper New York State. Unbeknownst to her, the place has been taken over by two thugs who are on the run and have holed up there.

That synopsis may be a little sketchy. I'm working off my memory of the book from when I read it back in '81. 

Figured I'd give wikipedia the night off.

It was a strange book in many ways. Fleming writing from a woman's perspective is bound to be skewed and full of his own wish-fulfillment and ideas about how a woman might think. In giving the co-writing credit to the protagonist, it attempts to give the impression that Bond is real. 

Aside from that, this book is 221 pages long and is split into three sections entitled Me, Them and Him. 

Bond himself doesn't appear until around page 135 as he pulls up at the hotel to get a room and soon realises that the two thugs aren't the proprietors of the place. 

Needless to say, it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the film of 1977. Fleming was disappointed with the sales of the book and stated that only the title could be used if it were ever to be filmed. 

Around 1990, I bought a copy of a 'lost' Dashiell Hammett novella called Woman In The Dark. This story centres on a woman who arrives at the home of a couple living in an isolated house in the country. She is being pursued by three or four (can't recall exactly) rich men that she was partying with earlier. While she is portrayed as being a little bit of a floozy, these men have misread her signals, thinking that she's more of a good-time gal than she really is. 

As the story progresses and she continues to try and escape and evade these men, she hooks up with an ex-con who's recently gotten out of jail. Together, they try to get away from these men, but they are hampered by the very real likelihood that the police won't believe her version of events compared to whatever the rich guys tell the cops. 

'The strumpet and the convict'  is how she describes herself and this man when he suggests they go to the cops to explain what's going on. He, of course, doesn't want to risk his parole, so it seems that the odds are stacked against them both.
Once again, I'm working off memory here. 

I remember reading this book and thinking of the similarities between this and the Bond novel. Or maybe I'm projecting a little more into it all than there actually was. 

At any rate, I'll need to re-read them both at some point to really be certain. 

Gee, that all went nowhere, didn't it? 

Shit.

I wore the Sinn 103 St Sa chronograph on the 8th, when I cracked the seal on the 'emergency bottle' of Bombay Sapphire. I bought this 500ml bottle in Rome back in September 2016 for about ten or fifteen Euros, which was equivalent to about $21 AUD at the time. Back here in Oz, a 750ml bottle of this stuff was selling for about $40 bucks back then.

Do the math, to account for the 250ml difference and you still feel that we're getting stung here in Australia with liquor prices.  I also bought a bottle of Ballantine's Scotch Whisky for 12 Euro, which I recall worked out to eighteen bucks. Yet here in my burg, it would cost about thirty-five to thirty-eight dollars. 

It's enough to drive you to drink.

Anyway, I spent an hour or so ironing half a dozen shirts and two pairs of chinos last weekend while listening to some wristwatch-related podcasts. By the time I was done, it was well and truly time for a drink. I was wearing the Railmaster.
My kids have been using up the ice without refilling the trays. Drives me nuts. So, I grabbed a small ZipLoc bag, half-filled it with water and put it in the freezer. For emergencies.

My wife came home earlier that day with a little vintage Japanese figurine that she found in a thrift store. "Check it out. She's wearing silk." 
Decked out in geisha-style robes, she holds what looks to me like an olive branch. Her face is made of a tightly woven fabric, possibly mounted onto a hardened base and her expression is (probably) hand-painted. And it looks flawless. Even though there are signs of mold appearing in places.

My wife quickly dubbed her 'Miss Happiness' and I didn't argue. It seemed to fit. We lightly cleaned her, removing the accumulated dust from her hair and making a minor repair to the angled hat on her head before putting her on a cabinet in the lounge room.

Now, as long as the cats stay away from her, she should be fine. Dammit, that iron is in the bottom edge of the frame. I've lost count of how many pictures I've taken over the years where the ironing board is visible in the corner of the room.

I wore the Oris Diver SixtyFive blue/black earlier this week and switched to an old-school piece that I haven't worn for some time. The circa 1962 Omega Seamaster Automatic;

Today.
           Spent an hour or two rearranging the lounge room so that I could set up a new phone in a more easily accessible part of the room. Our current phone is plugged in to the modem and it's situated in the far corner of the lounge room behind the corner of the couch.
What this means is that when the phone rings, we have to sprint to the lounge and then navigate our way around the corner of the L-shaped couch. By this time, the answering machine has already kicked in with a pleasant American voice; Hello. No-one is available to take your call. Please leave a message after the tone. Followed by the beep.

I bought a new hands-free phone off eBay, something that still retained a semblance of the shape of an old rotary phone. Sort of.

My son and I then attached the RJ45 cables and worked them along the skirting in an effort to make them as inconspicuous as possible. This involved running some small brass hooks along the skirting and looping the cable through them, then zig-zagging the cable between the brickwork of one wall.

If I had my way, I'd just have an old-fashioned land-line telephone plugged in to the old phone socket. This would be independent of the modem and broadband service. Also, it wouldn't require power from the electrical system. As it stands, this whole analogue exchange is long gone (or well and truly on the way out) and this leaves us at the mercy of Australia's pitiful broadband network.
We were without internet and home telephone for five days last month. Our provider, aside from making it difficult and convoluted to speak to somebody about this and get a straight answer, sent us a portable 4G WiFi modem loaded with 50gb of pre-paid free data.
If it happens again, just plug this modem in to your existing one and you'll be right, they said.
Okay, that was of some consolation...until I read the fine print on the packaging; "50 GB. 28 day expiry. Activate by 31/3/19"
If our modem goes down again after March 31st, this thing will just be a paperweight.

Anyway, this new hands-free phone is up and running and the old hands-free is still in the awkward spot behind the couch for now. 

If I never see another RJ45 cable, it'll be too soon. I was wearing the Oris Diver SixtyFive;

And that's another few weeks done and dusted. Work has been very busy since we re-opened for the year. My wife and I have a short break planned for late next month and I'll say more about that as it draws closer.
All we have to do for now is plow on until then.

I hope you've all been well and that this year has begun nicely for you all.

Thanks for reading!