Friday 29/4/2016 - The De-Clutter Commences (sort of), In The Deep End, Happy Birthday Domino, & This Week's Wristwatches

I was still wearing the Omega Speedmaster on Monday;

As I said, my colleague is away this week and this has left me to handle any and all Repair and Spare Parts-related inquiries. So far, so good, although I'm not quite up on the pricing of watch straps and bracelets. Still, I've been able to handle most of the workload, even if I'm moving at a slower pace. 

Man, I just got another reminder to switch over to Windows 10! Part of me thinks I should, but I've got enough learning going on at the moment. Pretty soon, though, I reckon Microsoft will stop asking me. And then I'll be sorry. 

For now, I'm still running Windows 7.

Another Bond Girl celebrated a birthday this week. French actress Claudine Auger, who starred as Dominique 'Domino' Derval in the 1965 OO7 film, Thunderball, turned 75 on Tuesday. 

I don't mind Thunderball, but I always thought that this was the film where the gadgets began to get a little too prominent. 

While this film had some great moments in it, I do think that it lacks a little tension in places and the ending doesn't pack any punches.

But some of the dialogue was witty, and this film does contain a scene where bad girl Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi) informs Bond that the 'ideological repositioning' trope will fail to work on her. It has been said that it was pretty early in cinematic Bond's adventures to have this idea inverted. 

Basically, the ideological repositioning occurs whenever Bond meets a woman who works for the villain. Bond charms her into bed and she miraculously switches over from the bad guy's side to being Bond's ally. 

The most notable use of this Bond convention was perhaps Pussy Galore in Goldfinger the previous year. Not only was Ms Galore working for Goldfinger, but she was also a lesbian before she met Bond. In the book, that is. This notion was all but eradicated for the movie. Actually, it was pared right down to just one line where she resists Bond's advances and innuendos: "Your charms are wasted on me, Mr Bond. I'm immune."

In the film, Bond basically forces himself upon her in a haystack (those crazy '60s) and we find out later in the film that she has subsequently sabotaged Goldfinger's robbery of Fort Knox before willingly (this time) ending up in Bond's arms by movie's end. 

In other happenings, I ended up getting some reading glasses. Actually, I'll be using them for up-close watch-related tasks at work. There have been a few instances since I started this job where a watch required a strap or bracelet swap and, since I can do them in my sleep, I happily obliged by performing these quick little swaps so that the watchmaker could concentrate on actual watchmaking and repairs. 

My eyesight is fine for reading, but as soon as  I hold something closer than twenty centimetres from my eyes, things get blurry. Since working with bracelet pins/screws or spring bars can be fiddly work, I figured it was perhaps time to invest in some specs that I could wear for these tasks. 

I decided to steer clear of plastic frames this time around. I would need a frame that had those expanding hinges. A frame that could be whisked off my face quickly, something that could be tossed casually onto a table-top without having to worry about them breaking. 

So, I opted for these matte metallic brown frames made by Kenneth Cole. Or rather, whomever Kenneth Cole has farmed out the manufacture to- sure enough, one temple of these frames states 'Designed in USA', and another part of these specs has 'Frame China' printed on it. 'Nuff said. 

I wouldn't normally go for frames made by fashion brands, for that very reason, but these ones seemed to suit my requirements without costing a fortune. Especially considering that I wouldn't be wearing them very often. Not yet, anyway. 

So, in short, I now carry three pairs of glasses every day. My distance glasses for driving, watching TV or at the movies, sunglasses for sunny days (obviously), and these reading glasses for up-close work. 

Just as well I bring a bag to work.

I think it was on Monday afternoon that I switched over to the Sinn 103 St Sa chronograph. Monday was Anzac Day here in Australia, where we remember the sacrifices made by those who served. 

So, I knew that the next day, Tuesday, was gonna feel like Monday to me. Which is why I wanted to wear a watch with both day and date on it.

Started reading another spy novel on Wednesday night. I've been reading a lot of short stories lately on my very short train trips to work each day. Since it's only a fifteen or twenty minute trip, I find I don't get entire chapters of novels read by the time I arrive at my station. Add to this the fact that there are more people on public transport these days having long conversations on their mobile phones (for all the world to hear), and I find it hard to concentrate on plot developments of long-form books. Whereas, I don't seem to have trouble with short stories, possibly because the entire story takes place over far less pages, thereby the reader tends to get more information laid out for him/her over a shorter length. Or maybe not.

Anyway, I'm only about five pages into this book, set in 1989 just prior to the fall of The Berlin Wall. I've read two other of Henry Porter's books and I quite liked Robert Harland, the protagonist who works for MI6. 

They can't all be Bond books, trendsetters. Sure, I could read some of my Le Carre's, but they can be quite dense and multi-layered. Started reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy back in my twenties and got about fifty pages in before giving up. Might be time to take another crack at it. 

Okay, it's 9:14pm on Thursday night and I'm feeling quite tired. Think I'll stop for now. Finish this tomorrow evening. Right now, there's a cup of Earl Grey (with a dash of milk and one sugar) with my name on it. Well, there will be once I make it. 

Scratch.

I decided to try a strap on my Omega AquaTerra, just to switch things up a little. I have a very thin Zuccolo Rochet & Cie calf-skin strap with a lizard print embossed on it, so I thought I'd try in on this watch.

I love the look. The only problem is the slightly snug fit of this strap on the watch. The space between the lugs is 19mm. The strap's width is 20mm. No drama. It still fits, but it does look a little bunched up when viewed closely.
Those two Italian stamps are courtesy of a letter that my mother received from a cousin in Italy sometime back in the late '80s or early '90s. I steamed 'em off the envelope before it ended up in the trash because I was in my full film noir fascination period back then.

Ossessione is a 1943 neo-realist film by Luchino Visconti and it's basically an Italian version of James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, which didn't get the Hollywood treatment until 1946.
I had the Visconti film on VHS and watched about half of it one night. I can't recall why I got side-tracked. Maybe it was late. The full version had a running time of 140 minutes, and I have a vague memory of thinking that I wouldn't stay up to watch the entire two hours and twenty minutes that night.
Of course, now that VHS has gone the way of the dodo, I have still yet to finish watching this film. It's up on YouTube, but those are links to some possibly shady websites and, believe it or not, I'm not at all savvy with watching/downloading/streaming films off the web.

Anyway, all, that's it for this week. Might hit an antiques store tomorrow, and the kids wanna go see Captain America: Civil War, so that may form part of Sunday's activities.

Then it's back to work on Monday.

Thanks for reading and have a good weekend!


EDIT: 1/5/16- Corrected the spelling of 'ideological'.