Goodbye to Another Wonderful Cat | Bowie. 2017 - 2025

Once again, our house feels different. 

We wake up in the morning, and he's not sitting outside our bedroom door. We come home from work, and he's not curled up asleep on a corner of the couch. We prepare dinner, and he doesn't walk in meowing as the plates are placed on the table.

April 30th. It was a Wednesday evening. I got home from work and my wife and daughter said they'd go get us some burgers for dinner. My son was out working, so it would just be the three of us. 

Off they went to a local burger joint (which ended up stuffing up their order) while I sat at the kitchen table taking some lenses off some cameras and swapping them around to see which lens would fit which camera. 

Ten minutes or so later the doorbell rang. It was a neighbour from a few houses down. He had a torch in his hand, as it was beginning to get dark.

"Hi, teeritz, it's ******, from number 4, Do you have a cat?"

I said that we did have a cat, and he explained that his wife had told him that a cat was lying on the nature strip outside their house. 

I headed out there with him and as I got closer to his house, I could see the familiar shape and colour of our cat, Bowie. 

"Oh, no, no, no", I thought to myself as I got closer. 

"Ahh, damn, Bo", I said as I crouched down to feel his chest and back. His eyes were slightly open, pupils fully dilated. He still felt warm, but didn't stir.

He was gone. 

"Oh, dammit", I said as I stood up, wondering what to do next. I thanked my neighbour and he asked if I needed any help. I told him I'd be okay and that I'd just go get a towel and be right back. He waited a minute or so for me to come back. He asked again if I needed any help. I thanked him and told him I'd be alright, as I crouched down and wrapped Bowie up in the towel. Burmese cats are known to be heavy, often described as 'bricks wrapped in silk'. He felt heavier right now as I bid my neighbour a goodnight and headed back to my house a few doors away. 

It was now around six-thirty pm on this chilly Autumn evening. My wife and daughter had been gone about 20 minutes. They should be back soon, I thought to myself as I sat down on the weight bench in our carport and looked down at this little cat in my lap, wondering how I would break the news to them. I stroked his cheek as my eyes welled up. 

"Oh, Bowie", I said as I continued patting him. I wondered if he had been hit by a car, but there were no marks or signs of trauma to his body. The tears kept coming. About ten minutes later, I got a message on my phone from my wife; "Sorry, an idiot took our order". 

That explained the fact that it was now around 30 minutes since they left. It was about twenty minutes later when I saw my wife's car turn into our street. It pulled into the driveway and as I sat on the bench, I looked up at my wife and daughter and shook my head. 

 

"What happened?", my daughter asked as she got out of the car. I explained what had occurred, but I had trouble getting it out. She said we have to take him to the vet, we have to take him to the vet. She was now understandably distraught.

I told her I'd been sitting with him now for over 30 minutes and I didn't think a vet would do any good. I took a slow deep breath and retold what had happened, my voice a little shaky. My wife was still trying to comprehend it. 

 

The above was written about a week after it occurred. I stopped writing because it was all still too raw.  I'll continue now (July 27th) and I'll see how long I last.

 

She had gotten home from work at around 5:45pm and my daughter had brought Bowie over to greet her. He seemed fine and his usual self, she told me. They then discussed dinner plans and I arrived home shortly afterwards.

We didn't see him around anywhere. He must've done his usual thing of heading out for a while before we had dinner. So, nothing unusual so far. My wife and daughter headed out to a local burger joint while I messed around with camera lenses before the doorbell rang and I got the awful news from my neighbour. 

 

Bowie was still wrapped in the towel and we got him into the car and made the short drive to a nearby animal hospital.  The girl at reception listened to our outline of events and called out a vet, who took Bo into another room. We waited about 20 minutes before the vet came out to tell us that there was nothing more that could be done. She said there was some fluid on his lungs and his front claws looked a little shredded. No evidence of impact, but it could have been a car. She based this on the condition of his claws. My wife said later that his claws were already like that and she had been meaning to trim them. We took him home and laid him out on his favourite cushion and draped his little blanket over him. 

All that was left now was to tell our son about it once he got home from work. There was no point in calling him while he was working. We didn't want to upset him. That would come later. 

Needless to say, the ladies of the household were very upset. 

 

Here he is, a few days after we first got him in 2017. He was very wary of us all and spent his first week hunkered down under our daughter's bed. Over the course of a few days, she noticed her socks were going missing. This cat had slowly hoarded a bunch of them and had arranged them in a semi-circle under her bed, like sand-bags. He'd built himself a fort. Took him quite some time to warm up to us all. My son was working nights back then, so he spent the most time with this little guy throughout the day, slowly coaxing him out from under the bed and playing with him during the day. Of course, we had Dussy, our other cat, who was older and she never really got comfortable with the idea of another cat in the house. That's putting it mildly. She hated him and would hiss whenever he came near. She did mellow a little in the last few years of her time with us. Regular readers may recall that she got ill very quickly in September 2023 and we had her put to sleep before her illness got worse.

 

Our son got home from work at around 10:30 that night and we broke the news to him. He was upset, but I think he wanted to hide it. That's okay. My wife and I did remind him that it was important to grieve in his own way and not to keep it bottled up. We told him it was unfair what had happened to Bo but it was important to deal with it. 

The next evening, my wife looked up a few pet cremation services online and found one that had gotten very good reviews. They were located on the other side of town. We made the necessary arrangements and provided a photo of Bowie - the one at the top of this post - and they were great to deal with, I have to say.  

My son brought Bowie into his room on the night that he died and placed him on the chair at his desk. This was a spot that Bo liked to sleep in during the day. 

It was a thoughtful gesture. Our son said that he didn't want Bowie left alone in the lounge room overnight. 

The next evening, we had taken Bo off the couch and placed him on his cushion. The pet cremation driver would be arriving soon. As I tilted Bo's head a little, some blood ran from his nostril. Once again, a reminder that he was truly gone. I dabbed at it with a tissue. 

My wife placed some leaves from a tree next to his head on the cushion. He liked sitting under that tree in Summer, she reminded me. 

In the coming days, I'd spend a few minutes here and there Googling info about how cats can die so suddenly, since I felt that the vet's conclusions were a little vague. 

Can Burmese cats die suddenly?, I Googled.
Yes, it turns out that they can. This breed is susceptible to heart issues. It would seem that he may have had a cardiac arrest. This didn't make me feel any better, but it did provide a possible answer to why he went so young. 

 

(August 3rd)

My wife was miserable in the days after he died. She said she just felt so sad about it, stating that he died so close to home, on a cold evening, without being with his people. 

 

We did, however, remind each other that we had all given him a nice life. 

Friday nights, my wife and I would make pizzas. The kids would be at work, so it was usually just the two of us. Bowie would appear in the dining area while we ate, and he would almost always end up with a piece of pizza crust to munch on, his little nose crinkling as he chewed.

Saturday nights were an especial treat for him. Again, the kids would be working and I would cook fish for my wife and I. 

Despite my cooking a smaller piece of salmon or barramundi for my wife, at her request, she would often not finish the entire piece, and guess who would be waiting for the leftovers?

This would later be followed by his normal 8:30-ish feed of meat. So, he was getting some surf & turf action going on Saturday nights. Living like a prince, he was. 

When I broke the news to my colleagues at work, I got some sympathetic responses from those who also own cats. One of them said; "I don't know which would be worse- a pet getting sick and dying or one that dies suddenly."

I didn't have a response at the time, but I've now had time to think about it, having experienced both outcomes. Dussy went downhill pretty quickly. She had a seizure on a Wednesday night and we saw a rapid downhill change in her health. She had trouble walking after that. The vet also said that her sight had gone. Her condition would worsen quickly. We had her put to rest the following Tuesday. It was very difficult to make the decision but it gave us time to come to terms with it. Not a lot of time, mind you, but enough for us to rally 'round and support each other while we made her as comfortable as we could in the time she had left. 

We would grieve afterwards. 

Whereas with Bowie, he was here at 6:00pm on a Wednesday evening and gone half an hour later. 

So, which would be worse, Lily? 

Losing a pet suddenly is worse. 

It's now just over three months since Bowie died. Till now, we weren't ready to look at getting another cat. However, chez Teeritz is a cat household, so it's only a matter of time. 

Since Bowie's passing, I've often thought that I could see one of our cats from the corner of my eye as I sat in the lounge room or dining area. When I've turned to look, I saw that it was a cardboard box or a shopping bag. My wife has said the same thing. So have the kids. The presence of our departed felines is still felt in this house. 

 

We visited the pet crematorium a week after they came to take Bowie away. We had the option of having his ashes posted back to us, but we didn't even entertain that idea, despite the fact that the crematorium was located way over on the other side of town. 

There was something cold and detached about Bo being sent in the mail. 

My wife and I drove out there on the Saturday morning and collected our little guy.  

We stopped off at a cafe on the way home. The little canister containing his ashes sat on the table between us. 

We soon finished our coffees and headed back to the car as the sun shone and the day warmed up. 

It was time to bring our beloved cat home. 

 

Despite the pain that one can go through when losing a pet, the joy and amusement that they provide far outweigh the grief that you experience once they're gone.  

And that's what I hold on to. 

Bowie lived half as long as our other beloved cat Dussy (still miss her), but he made a big impact on us all, and he had more of an effect on me than I thought he would. 

He will be sorely missed and always remembered in our household and we are grateful for the time that we had with him.

 

Thanks for reading.  

 

2024 - September | Binge-Watching Mrs Maisel, and a New Wristwatch

It's been a busy year work-wise, but I've managed to keep my department under control and operating reasonably smoothly. I've enjoyed going to work and dealing with the day-to-day aspects of the job. There have been no major dramas and all of the minor ones have been easily handled. 

In terms of my leisure time, this year has seen me reading far less than last year, which comprised mainly of espionage fiction;

Books Read in 2023

 

Trinity Six by Charles Cumming 

- Journalist chasing a story about spies recruited in the 1930s. Has a le Carré vibe to it. Pretty good.

The Catch (novella) by Mick Herron 

- The completist in me begins reading as much of Herron's work as possible.

All The Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer 

- American spy author. Very well written and plotted.

The Afghan by Fredrick Forsyth 

- Forsyth's research skills are as sharp as ever. Book was okay, maybe a 6/10.

Double or Nothing by Kim Sherwood (didn't finish it) 

- About the Double-O Section's other operatives. Bond is missing. So was my interest in this book, which took too many liberties with the world of OO7.

Standing By The Wall (novella) by Mick Herron 

- The completist continues...

The List (novella) by Mick Herron 

- and on...

The Drop (novella) by Mick Herron 

- ...and on. I did like these little novellas, as they provided some insight about the characters in Herron's other novels.

Spook Street by Mick Herron 

- A Slough House* novel. Great

London Rules by Mick Herron 

- Another Slough House novel. Excellent.

Nobody Walks by Mick Herron 

- A stand-alone book, about an ex-spy now living in France, who returns to London after the death of his son. Some Slough House characters show up. Great book.

Reconstruction by Mick Herron 

- Another stand-alone story, again with some Slough House cameos. And again, a great story. Herron writes good characters.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John le Carré 

- Read it back in the late '80s. Figured it was due for a re-read. A bleak anti-Bond story.

Winter Work by Dan Fesperman - Set just after The Wall came down. Interesting premise, well-written, but it doesn't seem like a great deal happens. I think I'll have to read it again before I make a definite judgement on it.

A Spy By Nature by Charles Cumming - First in a subsequent series of books about Alec Milius, freshly recruited into British Intelligence. Don't recall much about it, but I did like the writing. Another one that will require a re-read.

The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett - Another book that I first read back in the '80s. Thought I could use a break from all the spy stuff.

Damascus Station by David McCloskey - Debut book by McCloskey and it was great. 

*Slough House

Herron's first book, Slow Horses, concerned a bunch of f*ck-ups from British Intelligence who have been relegated to a quiet division in Slough House, led by one Jackson Lamb, a burn-out who's best work may be behind him. This crew, nick-named the slow horses by the rest of MI5, spend their days doing extremely menial and nonsensical tasks, in the hope that they'll get so bored and/or disillusioned that they'll resign, thus sparing any Human Resources headaches for Head Office. 

One of the slow horses left a secret file on a train, another is a coke-fiend, another is a problem gambler. It's for reasons like these that they have been swept under the mat into Slough House. 

Jackson Lamb drinks, smokes...and farts too much. He despises his crew (hoping that they'll quit), but he despises MI5 Head Office even more, and his one major ace up his sleeve is his razor-sharp mind. Whatever he's become that has led him to Slough House, he's still a master-spy.

Mick Herron has created a credible world, filled with a variety of characters in a shady corner of the already shady intelligence universe. 

 

Since signing up for Amazon Prime and Disney + this year, I've been watching a little more TV. One show that I'd been meaning to watch was The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

This show centres around Miriam 'Midge' Maisel, a young housewife living on the Upper West Side. Her husband Joel works as an executive in the city and he has ambitions of becoming a stand-up comedian. 

Problem is, he's not very funny. Midge gives him a lot of encouragement, proof-reads his routines, and generally supports his dream. One night, after a dismal performance on stage at The Gaslight Café, Joel accuses her of not being supportive of his comic ambitions and tells her he is leaving, after admitting that he's been having an affair with his secretary.

Joel leaves, and in a drunken rage, Midge ends up on the stage at The Gaslight Café, and delivers an observational rant that has the audience laughing, and the club manager Susie Myerson quickly realises that she may have a major talent on her hands. 

 

Midge is soon arrested by police for some lewd remarks during her impromptu performance and hauled off to the station. Groundbreaking '60s comedian Lenny Bruce, performing a set at the Gaslight also, is arrested as well. He becomes a recurring character in the show. 

There's a lot going on in this show throughout its five seasons. Midge establishes her own set of rules and conditions in her attempt to become a stand-up comedian in an era when women weren't encouraged to pursue this kind of career. Susie Myerson attempts to set herself up as a talent manager for Midge and other acts. Midge's parents have their own struggle in trying to understand and accept their daughter's new-found chosen vocation, while her ex-husband Joel attempts to find his own path in life. 

The acting is top-notch throughout, as evidenced by the numerous Emmy awards the show's creators and cast have garnered in recent years. 

Created by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who was responsible for Gilmour Girls (2000-2007), this show is extremely well done in almost every respect. The casting is wonderful, with particular mentions to Rachel Brosnahan as Midge, and Alex Borstein as Susie Myerson. Together, these two actresses carry the bulk of the show. 

 

Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam 'Midge' Maisel (left) and Alex Borstein as Susie Myerson. Two wonderful actresses, showcasing exemplary performances of two strong female characters with a wonderful friendship, which is the back-bone of the show, IMHO. Whenever Midge is about to go on stage, Susie's catch-phrase is a short and sweet break-a-leg statement; "Tits up". Only two words, but the meaning is profound, in my view - You're a woman, working in the predominantly male world (of stand-up comedy), so rope the audience in initially with your feminine charms, be proud, and then slay them with your comedic prowess. You are woman, let them hear you roar. Then they'll roar with laughter.

Extra-special mention goes to Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weissman, Midge's father, a Mathematics Professor at Columbia University, and Kevin Pollack as Moshe Maisel, Joel's father, who runs a garment business. 

In saying that, though, I can't fault anybody in the cast. Marin Hinkle and Caroline Aaron do a great job as Rose Weissman, Midge's mother, and Shirley Maisel, Joel's mother, respectively, each imbuing their characters with recognisable traits and mannerisms. 

And then there's the camera-work and cinematography! Outstanding. Beautifully lit and staged, with a cinematic quality to it all. 

 

 

There's a scene where Midge is about to entertain some troops and it starts with a Rockettes-style opening dance number on stage. Watching it, I couldn't help feeling that the way it was staged and shot, it wouldn't look out of place in a Spielberg movie. The production values and camera work were movie-quality. 

 

If I have one beef about the show, it would be the dialogue at times. Portions of it contained phrases that didn't exist in late '50s/early '60s America. 

When Midge recounts her first arrest to a subsequent audience at the Gaslight Café, she says; "And there I was, being perp-walked into the station."

When she tells of an incident where her young son was being indolent, she says; "I could take him."

These are modern terms and phrases, that appeared to take me out of the Mid-Century world of the show.  I suppose I can understand why they might have been included. 

Modern parlance would appeal to a modern audience. 

It's just that, given the attention to detail utilised in re-creating a 1950s diner, a street filled with big fat Buicks, Plymouths and Chryslers, and Midge's wonderful Audrey Hepburn-esque wardrobe, the modern lingo seems a little out of place.

In saying that, though, it is used pretty sparingly throughout the series, so it doesn't jar too much. 

Maybe I'm just being finicky. 

 

The attention to detail and homages to Old Hollywood are evident throughout the show.

There's a scene in Season 4 where Midge is working as emcee at a seedy strip club which is soon  raided by police and everybody scrambles out of every possible exit to avoid getting arrested. If you had sat me down in front of a tv without me knowing what or where this scene was from, I'd almost have believed it was an out-take or deleted scent out of Billy Wilder's The Apartment or Irma La Douce. You'd almost expect to see a young Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine in it. 

And the Steadicam work is wonderful.

 

While it presents one or two clichés here and there - Not all Italians sit around singing Funiculí, Funiculá - it avoids the worn-out trope where Susie shows any attraction to Midge. Their friendship is built on mutual respect and looking out for each other and I'm glad that the show didn't go in an obvious direction. Like Midge's yearning to be  a stand-up, Susie's ambition - to become a talent manager - is an uphill battle in a world full of male talent agents and the series charts her struggle, but she's a tough-talking, chain smoking, foul-mouthed gal who gets sharper at the job as the show progresses and she gives the boys a run for their money.

 

I can't fault this show, to be honest. Just about every character has a major arc in their individual stories, the performances are superb, the writing and plotting are on-point, and it's all very pretty to look at. 

Worth catching this show, if you haven't seen it. 

 

I picked up a new watch in August. The Baltic Hermétique Tourer. 

Baltic was started back in 2016 by Étienne Malec. He soon launched a campaign on Kickstarter, with the aim of getting enough backers to fund the production of a three-hand watch and a vintage-styled chronograph with a bi-compax dial. These watches would be vintage-inspired designs made using modern materials. 

His Kickstarter goal was to raise €65,000.oo. 

He ended up getting pledges for €514,806.oo over the 35-day period of his campaign.

 

Here are the two watches that were funded by his Kickstarter campaign;

 

Since then, he has expanded the brand to encompass 11 different models. Baltic has become one of the success stories of the wristwatch micro-brand world. Easy to see why. As I work in the watch industry, and have been collecting watches for twenty-five years, I spend a lot of time on the web looking at watches. Micro-brands pop up all the time. Some of them are good, offering a different perspective to much of what is already being produced. 

Some of them are derivative of existing or classic designs and don't really bring anything new to the table and end up looking like direct copies, with just a small tweak here and there to keep the lawyers away. 

And some of them are not very nice at all, lifting numerous aesthetic cues from other brands, to produce a watch that has already been done better by somebody else. Very often, these kinds of micro-brands cut a few corners during the production phase and this becomes evident when one takes a good close look at the final product. 

Baltic produces watches with a vintage vibe. While they don't mimic any exact watch from the past, their designs evoke the look of watches from the late 1940s through to the early 1970s. 

Anyway, you can always check out their website;

 

Baltic Watches 

Meanwhile, back to my Baltic watch. I've always liked the simplicity of a basic time-only wristwatch with a clearly laid-out dial. Often referred to as an "Expedition watch", this type of watch was perhaps first made popular by the Rolex Explorer, from back in the early/mid 1950s. Other brands made watches of a similar style. Two that immediately come to mind are the 1957 Omega Railmaster;

Pic borrowed from blommanwatchreport.com

 

This watch did okay for Omega, but never reached the same heights as their Speedmaster chronograph and Seamaster dive watch, both released that same year. The Railmaster was discontinued in 1963 and a new edition was released in 2003, in three different case sizes. A 60th anniversary model was produced in 2017, a virtual copy - based on Omega's archival blueprints - and this was followed by a new modern iteration the year after. 

For my money, though, the early Noughties edition is the stand-out. I got the 36mm model in 2012 and have never looked back. For those who may not know, my review is to be found on this blog via the 'Watch Reviews' tab up above. 

You can see the simplicity of the dial layout on a watch like this. Very easy at-a-glance readability.

Another watch that was touted as suitable for expeditions was the Nivada Grenchen Antarctic. As seen in this magazine advertisement, lifted from...

 Hodinkee.com | Hands-On: Vintage Or Modern? The New Nivada Grenchen Antarctic 35mm Helps Us Take On The Age-Old Debate

...this watch was marketed as being worn and used during Operation DeepFreeze, a US-led expedition to the Antarctic by Admiral Richard Byrd in the 1950s. 

As you can see, these watches looked like most other day-to-day men's watches of the era, but they were quite hardy and, if much of the advertising is to be believed, these watches stood up to quite a bit of punishment. 

A lot of basic men's watches were put through the ringer during these expeditions. There's the well-known (among Tudor watch nerds, anyway) letter that was written in 1956 to Rolex - Tudor's parent company  - about how well an Oyster-Prince model fared throughout the British North Greenland Expedition;

Dig that letterhead! 

As is pretty much well-known among us watch nerds, Edmund Hilary wore a British-made Smiths De Luxe mechanical watch  during his ascent up Mount Everest in 1953. 

These simple watches, worn during these endeavours, could take a beating. Their dials were clear and easy to read, their water-resistance was sufficient for the job at hand, and they were powered by a self-winding automatic movement. As the examples I've mentioned all took place in sub-zero climates, it might be fair to say that the watches would have been covered by jacket sleeves to protect them a little. Then again, if needing to check the time quickly was a necessity, a jacket sleeve may have been pulled back a little to expose the watch for easy viewing. 

All conjecture on my part. 

So, with all of this rugged history attached to this type of wristwatch, I spent a few months looking at this Baltic watch, read a few reviews, etc, before I visited the only seller in Australia who carries this brand. I had contemplated purchasing direct from Baltic's website, but when I got serious about the watch and did the sums, it pretty much worked out to be a difference of about $80.oo less if I bought from the website. The benefit, in my view, of purchasing from a bricks-and-mortar store is that, should anything go wrong with the watch, dealing with any warranty-related issues is more straightforward when doing so face-to-face rather than via back-and-forth emails and shipping. 

And so I bought the watch. I opted for the chocolate brown dial with matching Tropic rubber strap. My collection contains enough black, blue, and silver dials, so I thought I'd change things up a bit and go totally left field. Other colour options were blue, green, or a nice shade of beige.

 

Yeah, brown was the right one to go for. It looks edible. Case diameter is a wonderful 37mm, which sits so Goldilocksy on my 6.5 inch wrist. The dial. Ahh, the dial. Chocolate brown, with the hour markers and numerals made from C3 SuperLuminova and applied onto the dial like whipped cream piped onto its surface. And it has a slightly 'stepped' area on its outer edge, which sits lower than the rest of the dial. Hard to see in the photos. 

The movement inside it is a Miyota 9039, self-winding automatic with a 42 hour power reserve. Miyota is a subsidiary of Citizen watches, of Japan. Many micro-brands use Miyota movements. This is one major way to keep production costs and selling prices down, as this brand's movements are quite robust, with a decent daily accuracy for the price.

Perhaps the one drawback with the watch is the crown. Hermetic watches are so called because the crown sits pretty much flush with the case when its pushed in. Hermetically sealed and all that. This makes for a nice symmetry of the case. This also makes winding the watch by hand a tad difficult. It's not a huge issue, really. I give it five to ten winds by hand to get it going, by running my index finger along the crown's edge, then a few flicks of the wrist to top it up a little. As long as I'm wearing it, it'll continue to wind itself. I figure it's a very small price to pay when the rest of the watch more than makes up for this minor hassle. 

The case sits quite flat on the wrist and the watch has a 100m water-resistance, making it a fairly everyday go-anywhere, do-anything (GADA, is what collectors call it) wristwatch. While it looks good on its rubber strap, I knew I'd want the bracelet optional also, so I placed an order a couple of weeks later and it arrived not long after. 

The beads-of-rice bracelet design gained popularity in the 1960s and appeared on a number of watches across various brands. A pleasant change from the usual three-link bracelet style found on watches of that era, a major plus with this type of bracelet is the fit. As the links are so small, it makes for a very comfortable fit on the wrist, and it also allows the bracelet to breathe a little, due to the numerous gaps between the links. 

The sapphire crystal on this watch is domed, which allows for some interesting play of light, reflection, and distortion from certain angles, and it very perfectly suits the vintage vibe of the watch. Baltic spent a lot of time and effort on this Hermétique Tourer range (as with their other product families), to produce a distinctive watch with old-school charm coupled with modern technology. 

There was a time when there were quite a few watch manufacturers in France, given that the country borders Switzerland. Many of these brands went under during The Quartz Crisis of the 1970s. A few of them, such as Lip, survived that storm. Other brands, like Yema and Airain, were resurrected in recent years, to be re-introduced to a new generation of watch fans.

Baltic is part of the new wave of micro brands to come out of France in recent years. Serica and Meraud are two other French brands that immediately come to mind. Some of them use Japanese movements, some of them use Swiss. Either way, the attention to detail is commendable and the build quality rivals that of well established Swiss brands of similar pricing. 

As stated up above, the minor drawback with the crown is way off-set by the many positives found throughout the rest of the watch. 

It's a beautifully-made wristwatch, in an age where there are a myriad number of well-established brands with long histories, and a vast number of newly-created micro-brands all vying for your hard-earned dollars. You could do nicely with a Baltic watch. Not a sales pitch. I'm not affiliated with the brand in any way. 

I just think it's a watch that punches well above its weight. 

 

Anyway, another post down. At the time of writing, I'm slightly laid out with a cold. Been a while since I was last sick with anything. Work is busy these days and I worked from home today. No doubt, there'll be a few spot-fires to put out tomorrow, such is the nature of customer service. 

Still, when you have to rely on numerous external partners to help you do your job, you can only do what you can only do.

 

Thanks for reading, and take care.

2024 So Far - Random Stuff, Books Read & The Watches I Wore

 

 

This section below was written sometime back in June...

 

It's been a busy 2024 so far and time has definitely flown. 

Back in late January, my wife and I were feeling a little worn out and we figured we could use a quick break. We visited Ho Chi Minh City back in 2019 - ahh, the days before Covid - and again last September, and we felt that a week of not doing anything in sunny climes would be just the ticket. So we booked it and jetted off just before Good Friday.

Up above is a photo of the Independence Palace (also known as the Reunification Convention Hall), which has been left virtually intact since the 1970s. And it's all absolutely beautiful!

The Cabinet Room, seen here with its magnificent board table where ministerial meetings took place. I was stunned by the sheer breadth of these rooms. The entire palace is made up of these spacious areas, each made to be used for differing purposes and events.

The palace was rebuilt and completed in 1966 after the original palace (built in 1873) was damaged by a bomb attack by dissident Republic of Vietnam Air Force pilots and its overall design is representative of the era and heavily influenced by a Vietnamese aesthetic. 

We had no firm plans for this trip. No major sightseeing, no straying too far from our hotel. We spent the days walking around, visiting a nearby shopping centre, talking about future plans, our jobs, the kids, and we basically took things easy. It was nice not to be at work for a while.

And once again, I must've eaten something slightly dodgy because I ended up with a gut-ache on the last couple of days, but I didn't let this spoil the trip. I just ate a little less, and stuck to soups and easy to digest stuff.

 

There's a chain of cafés named Runam and we were within walking distance of three of them. They make this fantastic steak called BÒ ÚC NƯỚNG ĐÁ. I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce it and, since I cut and pasted it off their online menu, I'm not gonna switch it to lower-case because I'll lose the accents and tone marks above each letter, which I'm sure will vastly change the meaning of the name.

Example - when we were in Ho Chi Minh City back in September/October last year, my wife and I went to get a massage. 

I got onto Google Translate on my phone in our hotel room and quickly punched in the sentence; Please do not massage my feet. I had an operation on them last year.

We found a respectable massage/beauty salon in a nearby street and made our way in. I showed my message to the young lady who would be treating me and she looked at it and laughed. We explained my recent bunion operation to the owner of the place and she instructed my masseuse not to work on my feet. 

Later that afternoon, once we were back in our hotel room, I translated the Vietnamese phrase that I had shown the masseuse on my phone back into English and it read as; I am a magician. I had to send my brothers to another dimension.

That explains the giggling, bless her. 

Somewhere along the line, Google Translate had removed the accents and tone marks from the letters in the phrase and completely (and I mean completely) altered the meaning. Chances are high that I must've hit a wrong key somewhere. 

Either that or I'm a magician who sent his brothers to another dimension.

 

Okay, back to the steak at Café Runam. This steak was a 250gm piece of Angus beef served on a hot stone. I had mine served with sautéed potatoes and a mushroom sauce on the side. This stone stayed hot throughout the duration of my meal. I could feel the heat coming off it as I ate the steak. I rested a potato on the stone and it continued cooking. It was a filling steak, for 530,000.oo VND, which translates into about $31.ooAUD (about $21USD). I could have eaten these every day. 

Next time, I just might. 

In the photo above, you can see a slice of tiramisú, which can be had for the princely sum of just over five Aussie dollars. And by 'just over', I mean $5.01.

Next to this slice of cake is a coffee concoction that my wife tried. In a wide tumbler, some black coffee, with milk, with a lot of ice, topped up with a thick coffee-flavoured cream. And served with a little round shortbread biscuit.

Also in the frame is my Seiko Prospex Divers 200m, the solar-powered watch that I brought for the duration of the trip. Set-and-forget reliability.

It was a nice relaxing holiday, just the kind of quick break that we needed. 

And, despite the gut issues toward the end, I'd go back in a heart-beat. 

The people were very friendly, the sun was out, we did a lot of walking around, and nothing hurt. My feet didn't ache at the end of the day. Maybe it was the heat?

I had a disastrous typewriter transaction in February. Not wishing to relive it in any great detail, since its now pushing seven months since it all first occurred, I'll be brief;

* I bought an early '60s Antares Domus typewriter on eBay from a Seller in the UK.

* It arrived a couple of weeks later, packed in a re-used card-board box from Amazon, with a flattened edge and one corner slightly torn open.

* The typewriter was in its carry-case inside this box. The carry-case was wrapped in one single sheet of brown wrapping paper.

* I opened up the case, took the typewriter out of it and, as I did so, the carriage slid quickly over to the left. 

*Hmmm, I thought as I placed the machine down on my desk and slid the carriage return lever over to the right.

*No dice, the carriage didn't wanna play along, and it kept slipping back to the left. 

*Next day, I contacted the Seller and explained the situation. He offered to refund me some of the money that I paid for the machine. Is it of any use as it is?, he asked.

*Yes, I replied. As a paperweight. I basically have a three-legged greyhound here, I added. I then explained that I might be able to get it repaired by a fellow who's worked on my typewriters in the past, but this would no doubt be a costly endeavour. The typewriter repairman was Tom, the guy who has worked on nearly all of my typewriters. The wild card is that he last fixed one of my machines back in 2015. He was 68 years old back then and A) I'm not sure if he was still in business, and B) Lord knows what it would cost to get this done.

* I was thinking about getting a full refund, but the Seller explained that the item had been shipped through eBay's Global Shipping Program, so any discussion regarding shipping cost refund would have to be directed to eBay. 

* This was all getting complicated and convoluted. And, to be honest, I wasn't in the mood to have to pack this typewriter up again to send it back to the Seller. 

* I thought about keeping it and 

The Facts & Figures

The typewriter cost me 45GBP, which translated into about $90AUD.

Shipping was about 82GBP, which worked out to about $170AUD.

Total outlay so far was $267.79AUD. 

 

Okay, back to the point-form explanation;

 

* Seller offered me a refund of 50GBP, which was decent of him, I suppose, since this is the amount that he received. He didn't pay for postage, it was done through eBay's GSP. They basically paid for the shipping. 

* I wasn't finished with the Seller, though. I told him my main issue with this whole transaction was how poorly packed the item was, despite the fact that it was in a carry-case. A little more care and attention on his part would have possibly resulted in my receiving a properly working typewriter, as advertised. 

* He told me he had done all he could do. 

*Cool. I left Negative Feedback on eBay, explaining it all withing the confines of Feedback word limits and he countered my Feedback with a reply stating that 'the buyer had used eBay's Global Shipping Programme'-

* What!? I had no choice but to use eBay's GSP. No other shipping method or option was offered. 

* Like I say, it was getting convoluted and I didn't wish to prolong this saga any further. With this Seller, I left it at that. 

* It was time to tackle the next stage of this situation.

* I called Tom The Typerwriter Man and was glad to hear that he was still in business. Not so glad to hear that it would cost me $250.oo to get this machine fixed. 

* I dropped it off to his workshop. He remembered me from way back, which was nice. We chit-chatted for five minutes or so, and he told me to call him in a couple of weeks. He used to be the Authorised Distributor and Repairer for Antares typewriters back in the day, so I figured the machine would be in safe hands. As mentioned, he's worked on every one of my typewriters, bar one, so I had full faith in him. 

* Called him two weeks later and he said it was ready for pick-up. I headed over to see him and picked up the machine. He discounted the price down to an even $200.oo.

* I got the typewriter home, set it up, and fed a sheet of paper into the platen roller and started typing out that sentence about the quick brown fox. 

* This Antares Domus worked well enough, with a feel like an ultra-portable Olympia SF or Splendid 99, but not quite exactly like one. 

* And then it did that annoying joining up of twowords! I hateit when thathappens. It didn't do it often, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. It's just one of those things, to do with the escapement or space-bar. I wouldn't know exactly, since I'm not proficient with the inner workings of these things. 

Needless to say, I'm about $470AUD in the hole with this thing, which on any given day, is a $120.oo typewriter. 

So, I left it alone since I picked it up from Tom's workshop. And nothing against Tom. This might be as good as this machine will get. Or maybe my typing speed is the cause. 

Either way, it's all been a poor experience from the get-go. 

So, I think I'll donate it to a place in the city that people visit to create zines and such. They already have a few typewriters, so maybe they'll appreciate one more. 

Could'a sworn I said I wasn't gonna go into any great detail with this. 

Anyway, onward and upward. Fast-forward to the first week of September, and picking up from the typecast that started this post...

Wristwatch-wise, the Rolex Explorer got a lot of wear since my last post;

 

That's a small slice of mint-flavoured Turkish Delight. Dusted in icing sugar, it goes nicely with an espresso.

READING

I have to say I haven't been churning through books the way I did last year. Twenty-twenty-three saw me go through 12 novels and 3 novellas. This year seems to have stagnated considerably. 

I read a Marlowe novel called The Second Murderer, by Scottish crime writer Denise Mina. I have to say that finally, somebody - besides Chandler - got Philip Marlowe right. And I think it's great that it took a dame to show the boys how it's done. 

Hard to know when the story is set. It could be late 1930s or possibly mid-1950s. There are a few mis-steps, such as somebody being referred to as a 'railroad magnet' instead of magnate, but I think this has more to do with poor editing rather than writing. So impressed with it I was, that I had planned to write a letter to Ms Mina or her agent, but I think it might need a re-read before I do this, as I had some questions I had wanted to ask about it. 

The story concerns Philip Marlowe's search for a missing heiress. Mina does a great job with Marlowe, making him a much better facsimile of Chandler's character than other male crime writers who made attempts over the last four decades. Although, I've yet to read Robert B. Parker's two Marlowe books, entitled Poodle Springs and Perchance To Dream.

Mina's book captures Philip Marlowe's solitary nature and sharp mind, and she illustrates a seedy and down-town vision of Los Angeles in this tale. 

Yep, I'll definitely have to read it again. 

What else, what else. Oh yes, I was struggling to get through Bullet Train by Japanese author Kotaro Hisaka. My main bug with it is not the story itself, but the use of present tense narrative. I've never been a fan of the he-does-this, he-does-that form of storytelling. One review praises its use, saying that it adds to the immediacy and pace of the story. 

Maybe I'll get back to it at some point. Because, unless I really don't like a book once I've started it, I hate to leave it unfinished. 

After reading so much fiction last year, I thought I'd take a stab at non-fiction throughout 2024. I bought a Humphrey Bogart biography a few years ago. This book was begun by Ann M. Sperber, who had previously written a very well regarded biography on Edward R. Murrow. 

She conducted around hundred-and-fifty interviews throughout the 1970s and '80s with people who had known or worked with Bogart, from childhood friends to movie industry names from both sides of the camera. Sperber died in 1994 and her manuscript of the book was continued and completed by Eric Lax and published in 1997.

The result is an exhaustive and very well-written biography, a rich portrait of a man with complex and varying sides to his personality. He could be quite cruel and cutting, more-so after a third Martini, yet he could also champion the underdog. Bogart had a privileged upbringing in upstate New York, the son of a surgeon and a famous illustrator. 

He spent ten years working on the New York stage on Broadway and had no prior acting lessons. He was known to complain about a lot of things, earning himself the nickname "Bogie The Beefer". 

However, he was also punctual every day, and would be in his dressing room with the script while the lighting guys rigged up the set. Then he would arrive on-set to deliver his lines in a couple of takes. 

He spent a majority of the 1930s on the New York stage and delivered a great performance as escaped convict Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest in 1935 during its theatrical run. Leslie Howard was the star of this stage production and he soon purchased the rights to this story so, when Hollywood came calling, Warner Bros. signed him up for the screen version and he stipulated that production would not commence until Bogart was cast as Mantee in the movie. The studio wanted to cast Edward G. Robinson as Mantee, but Leslie Howard was adamant about Bogart. The studio relented in the end, but Bogart's career would be marred by his ongoing contract battles with studio head Jack Warner.

All in all, it was a thoroughly interesting book.

 

The Tudor Ranger got a little time on the wrist back in May. Not sure if this one will stay or go, to be honest. For now, it's a keeper, but my fickle tastes may change at any given moment.

 

Another book that caught my eye was A Waiter In Paris, by a fellow named Edward Chisholm.

As the title suggests, this book is about a waiter in Paris. Our  narrator is a young Englishman with aspirations of becoming a writer. Currently living in an apartment in Paris with his girlfriend,  she soon tells him that she's landed a job at a gallery in London and plans to leave in a couple of weeks and would like him to go back to England with her. He has no plans to return to the UK, figuring that he'd like to follow in the footsteps of George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway, hoping to be inspired by the City of Lights. 

Of course, he hasn't really thought things through and by month's end, he's living out the remainder of the soon-to-expire lease on the apartment, with around 200 Euros in his pocket and no other possessions to his name.

In a country where he doesn't speak the lingo, either. 

So, he sets out to get a job in a restaurant, but without any hospitality experience or French speaking skills, he winds up as a runner in a small and seedy - but busy - bistro where the waiters work very long hours and try to cheat each other out of tips and scraps of food. It's a very bleak position that he's put himself in and the book outlines his attempts to find someplace to live and sleep while trying to earn enough money to buy a packet of cigarettes. All the while, the other waiters (and one of the managers) view him with distrust and contempt. 

The introductory chapter felt a little clichéd, but it soon showed itself to be a very well written book. Made me go out and buy Orwell's Down And Out In Paris And London, which I'll tackle some other time. 

 

I've also been slowly working though a book called The Notebook - A History of Thinking on Paper, by Roland Allen. It's a history of how notebooks were first used and their evolution throughout the centuries and how they derived and expanded from early accounting practices and ledgers in Florence and other cities of the world throughout history. Some chapters are slow, to be sure, but it has been an interesting read. 

Other watches worn since March...

 

The 1982 model Rolex Submariner 5513 has been worn sparingly so far this year. I've found myself reaching for the Tudor Black Bay 58 more often. 

Whilst this Rolex was a Grail Watch for decades, I've found myself babying it a little in recent years. Its plexiglas crystal is more prone to scratching than modern sapphire crystal, for one thing. 

This has had me thinking about whether or not this particular watch will stay in the collection. It has a deserved iconic status in the history of dive watches, without a doubt, but I view my watches as things to be worn and used. That's what they are for, after all, so if I find myself being a little too careful with a watch, then I begin to rethink its place in the collection. This will require a little more thought and consideration. If I do decide to move it along, I'll first have to give some serious thought to what will replace it. And, just as importantly, if not more so, whatever I decide to do, there can be no regrets. I've been down that road and it sucks. If or when the time comes to sell this watch, I'd better be damn sure. 

For now, though, it's a stayer.

 

And here's the watch that usurped the Submariner's place at the top, the Tudor Black Bay 58. An instant classic (in my view) on the day it was released in 2018, this watch has sold like crazy in the ensuing years. 

Not much I can fault with this watch. My only quibble is the clasp, or rather, the length of it. It doesn't perfectly follow the curve of my wrist, which has more to do with the small diameter of my wrist than it does with the clasp itself. Still, I managed to fit an after-market half-link to the bracelet and this alone has improved the fit of the watch. It now fits about 95% perfectly. 

Good enough for me. 

I've had this watch since Boxing Day 2020, so it may be ready for servicing in about a year or so, but something tells me it may still be a few years away from requiring attention. 

The Rolex brand gets a lot of well-deserved and earned attention. It makes some phenomenal watches, without a doubt. However, Tudor is nothing to sneeze at, as far as I'm concerned. While watch snobs will refer to the brand as 'the poor man's Rolex', one needs to remember that Tudor was devised by Rolex founder Hans Wilsdorf to be the Rolex-type watch for the working man. Tudor cases, crowns and bracelets were supplied by Rolex, while the actual movements were out-sourced. This helped make Tudor watches affordable and they were always considered the sister brand to Rolex. 

This has changed over the last ten or twenty years, as Tudor and Rolex have put a little separation between them, but this here is a brand with its own history, classic models, and personality. 

 

The 36mm Omega Railmaster has gotten a new lease on life since I put a new bracelet on it. It was a convoluted process and I wasn't sure it would work, but it involved using the parts from two different after-market bracelet manufacturers in order to arrive at a look and fit that I was happy with. 

I like the simplicity that you get with a simple three-hand watch. No date, just the time.
 

Okay, I think I'll wrap it up here for now. There's more that I could write, I suppose, but I'm running out of steam as well as inspiration right now. 

 

I hope you've been well this year so far, and thanks for reading!

Reading/Time No. 3 | May to September 2023 - The Book/s I Read, The Watches I Wore, and a New Watch Alert!

From my last post, of July 8th;

I'll start on the next post sometime in the next week or two.

Sorry!

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realise that this could become a very long post, so I think I'll write it as a two or three parter. 

May to November is a long stretch of time and it feels like much has happened, to say the least, so splitting a long post into a few parts might make a little more sense.

It's been a busy 2023 so far. Work has been hectic, but in a mostly good way. My feet are okay, except for the slight-to-noticeable degree of pain that I experience with my left foot where I fractured a metatarsal bone back in February. I'm hoping that this will fade over the next six to twelve months. Otherwise, I feel more surgery may be required.  

Most importantly, we had to put our wonderful cat Dussy to sleep a couple of weeks ago, after her health went downhill rapidly. I spent the rest of September feeling miserable about it. Truth be told, I'm still not over it.

I did write about her in my previous post, as I felt I had to get the experience out of my system. She was an extraordinarily wonderful cat that I will love and miss forever. 

However, not to dwell on it here.

The 37mm Longines Spirit got quite some time on the wrist over the last few months. 

Over the last year or so, I've reverted back to smaller sized watches in certain styles. I've been thinking more about the types of watches that I like, and the kind of size that I feel best suits my wrist. I've basically broken it down to a few categories. This is something that I began doing a few years ago and my aim is to end up with a definitive collection of three or four types of watches, in a tight range of sizes. 

For example, the Dive watch. I've been collecting watches since the mid-'90s. I've tried numerous case sizes over the years and have decided that a circa 40mm diameter diver works best on my 6.5 inch wrist (in my humble opinion). Sure, I can carry off a slightly larger size, but I seem to be most comfortable with 40mm, with a give-or-take of 1mm either side. So, 39mm to 41mm tends to be my preference, but I can push to 42mm depending on the watch. My Omega Planet Ocean, Seamaster 300 and Seiko SKX009 are all 42mm and they can tend to dominate the top of my wrist, but that's okay to me because they're such perfectly designed and balanced cases.

 

Books read in May to September

 

I've been on a spy novel binge this year and have predominantly churned through more than a few of Mick Herron's works this year. 

Prior to this, I was slowly trudging through Kim Sherwood's modern Bond story, entitled Double Or Nothing and got two-thirds of the way through it before it (or I) ran aground. More about that later.

I had already listed my gripes with this book in my earlier post from July 8th, so I won't go back into them here. Sherwood writes well enough, without a doubt, but I had to wonder if she was writing this book with a 'literary' writer's idea of how a Bond story should be. Writing Bond can be a razor's edge or tightrope walk, as it can be easy to fall into cliché or pastiche if one isn't careful. A few previous Bond continuation authors have lost their footing, in my view. Sebastian Faulks (Devil May Care) and William Boyd (Solo) spring to mind. 

Very well written, but not memorable. 

 

Oh, before I continue about books, how's about a typecast about the new watch that I got in the middle of May?

 

With this new iteration of the Explorer model, Rolex has applied the numerals and filled them in with their proprietary Chromalight lume so that they glow in the dark with a nice pale blue hue. In normal lighting, the markers, hands and numerals are a stark, bathroom-tile white. In the dark, they go an icy blue.

 

Looking at this photo here, you can see the attention to detail in the lume-filled markers and numerals. 

Very sharply done.
 

Why the Explorer, teeritz?

 

A few reasons. For one, Ian Fleming wrote a similar watch onto Bond's wrist in his second OO7 novel, Live And Let Die, back in 1954. Referring to it as the "the Rolex Oyster Perpetual with large phosphorous numerals", many watch nerds speculated that the watch was an Explorer. 

My theory? Well, Fleming was a stickler for details. Aside from his recipe for Bond's Vesper Martini, he specified the type of car Bond owned - a 1930 Bentley 4-and-a-half litre - right down to the engine modifications made to it, stipulated that Bond like his hard-boiled eggs - speckled eggs taken from French Marans hens - cooked for three-and-a-third minutes and served with Blue Mountain Coffee and toast with Oxford's English Marmalade. Fleming being Fleming, if Bond's Rolex had been an Explorer model, with the word 'EXPLORER' printed across the upper half of the dial, I suspect that he would have mentioned it. 

And I say this even despite the fact that Fleming himself owned and wore a 1016 model Explorer throughout his life.

Methinks that Bond's watch may have been the pre-Explorer watch, the Reference 6150;

This model tends to match Fleming's brief description. 

Anyway, for my money, the current model Explorer would be the closest match to what Bond might have worn in the novels. 

That is my flimsiest reason for getting this watch. 

 

FLASHBACK - Years ago, I got home from work on a warm Summer's night, and we finished dinner, packed the kids into the car and drove down to the beach for a stroll along the water's edge. It was a busy scene, with people in the water and parked out on the sand. A cool breeze blew off the surface of the water as I walked along with my wife, my sandals in one hand and her hand in the other as we kept a lazily watchful eye on the kids. 

A little later, we sat on the low blue-stone wall that separated the sand from the concrete walking path and I saw a middle-aged Asian man walk by. He was wearing a white T-shirt and light grey shorts that stopped half-way down his thighs. A pair of thin, black rectangular glasses were perched on his nose. His immaculate black hair was cut short and greying along the temples. His tanned arms were wiry. On his left wrist was a Rolex Explorer wristwatch, and I recall thinking that it looked sensational on him in the evening sunset light. Golden Hour is a wonderful thing. 

I began to speculate; was it his only watch or did he have a collection? I suspect it was  his only watch - don't ask me why - and it looked damned perfect. 

That image, fleetingly caught, has always stayed with me. 

And, another reason why I went for this watch is because it's just one of the nicer offerings in the current Rolex line-up. Simple as that. And it goes without saying that this watch got a lot of wear throughout the rest of May.

 

Okay, back to our scheduled program. And so, on to Mick Herron's books. I've been bingeing on them this year. I read three of his short story/novellas, The List, The Drop and The Catch. Each of these stories centres on John Bachelor, a low-level operative who has been relegated to keeping an eye on retired spies. Nothing Earth-shattering or of national security, he's merely meant to check up on them once a week, to make sure they're eating properly, taking their medications, keeping out of mischief, etc. Herron has a wonderful writing style, reminiscent of some of Len Deighton's work. The stories are atmospheric and to be taken seriously, but there's an underlying wit and sarcasm to them that counter-balances the trade-craft and spy stuff that occurs in the stories. 

John Bachelor tends to do the bare minimum of work required to keep his job, and he's of the notion that he'll one day be promoted or returned to the higher ranks of MI5, but he just seems not to do enough to increase his chances for redemption from the powers that be. Like the rest of Herron's characters, he's very well drawn. 

While skipping through these three novellas, I persisted with Sherwood's Bond book mentioned above and got two thirds of the way through. I started reading it in mid-April and gave up on it on September 19th. I have been haphazardly keeping a book journal and kept a record of what I've been reading this year. The fact that this book took me five MONTHS to get to page 286 should have told me something. 

Life is too short to waste time on a movie or book that you're not enjoying. 

This book also began to kill my love of reading, given that it was taking me so long to get through it. Coupled with a very busy workload in my job, I soon noticed that the thrill of reading was beginning to fade a little, which I suppose is why I jumped into reading the novellas. Bite-sized books kept me reading.

 

The Tudor Black Bay 58 has been worn a lot in the two-and-a-half years that I've had it. It has in many ways usurped the Rolex Submariner 5513 from its high perch in the collection. 

So much so, that I've been giving some serious thought to selling the Submariner and perhaps replacing it with a more modern model, possibly a Reference 16610 from the early 2000s. I'll have to give a lot more thought before I make a definite decision.
 

And so, back to Herron's works. To date, he has written eight books in his Slough House series. These books revolve around disgraced members of MI5 who have botched assignments in major ways. Rather than being sacked (fired), and to avoid Human Resources red tape and/or wrongful dismissal litigation, they are relegated by HQ to a poorly funded/maintained/empowered division of the intelligence services at Slough House, a drab group of offices located behind a door - that's never used - which is sandwiched between a Chinese take-away restaurant and a newsagent/grocery. The staff enter these ramshackle offices via an entrance at the rear of the building. Up a flight of metal stairs to a door leading in, which always requires a shove to get it opened or closed.

The offices are cold and poorly lit, the stairs creak when somebody takes them. The staff bicker among themselves. As further insult, they are nicknamed 'Slow Horses', also being a pun on the location of their 'headquarters'. 

In charge of this group is one Jackson Lamb, who drinks and smokes too much, doesn't shower often enough and treats them all like idiots, keeping them occupied with mundane and boring tasks, in the hopes that they'll quit the Service. Rumour has it that Lamb was once stationed in Berlin before The Wall came down, but this is yet to be fleshed out in any of the books I've read. 

He routinely insults them, reminds them often enough of the reasons why they are in Slough House, and belches and farts in their presence, but he has an extreme loyalty towards them all and this is evident when his crew are in danger. They are his 'joes', after all. It's a term used throughout these books to refer to field agents. 

Like John le Carré, Herron has created his own jargon. 

I read books three and four back-to-back. They were Spook Street (2017) and London Rules (2018).

Spook Street begins with a suicide bomber detonating his back-pack in a shopping centre. Meanwhile, an attempt is made on the life of David Cartwright, retired spook (a term for spies) who may or may not be showing signs of dementia. His grandson is River Cartwright, one of the Slow Horses in Jackson Lamb's team, who goes to France to investigate the origins of the suicide bomber. 

Old spy David Cartwright's name is Herron's easter-egg/homage to John le Carré, who's real name was David Cornwell.

River Cartwright fumbled a training exercise in the opening pages of the first book Slow Horses (2010), although it is questionable as to whether or not he was at fault. Rumour has it that his grandfather was instrumental in pulling some strings to avoid his grandson getting booted out of the Service entirely, thus we find young River Cartwright relegated to the mind-numbing purgatory of Slough House.

 

The Longines Spirit was worn a lot during September when I was reading Spook Street. The 37mm diameter of this watch does sit quite perfectly on my slender wrist and its dial offers some nice, clear readability. Although, I do find that this watch has more of a 'Winter feel' to it and, therefore, I think it won't be worn so much over the warmer months ahead. I bought a leather strap for it recently and I'll put it through its paces when Winter comes around.  

 

Similar in some ways to the Explorer, this watch also features applied numerals on the dial which have been filled in with Luminous material. 

 

Applied markers as opposed to painted ones;

With applied markers, the dial has small holes drilled into it and the hour markers are then anchored to the dial, offering a three-dimensional aspect to the overall look of the markers or numbers. 

Whereas, a painted dial is just that. The hour markers are stamped onto a flat disc dial, often then painted over with luminous material. Either method works well, but I have to say I do like the extra effort that is made with the applied markers.

The events in the next book London Rules (2013) show some continuation from the previous novel, as the slow horses find themselves caught up in a plot involving a foreign hit squad that has arrived in London. Slough House's resident tech-head, a young IT whiz named Roderick Ho, goes missing. He's so conceited that he's of the belief that he was relegated to this dead-end team because he was too brilliant to remain in MI5. He's young and wears baggy denim and hoodies as his hands dance across computer keyboards while cans of energy drinks and empty pizza boxes pile up around his desk.

Meanwhile, River Cartwright is dealing with some revelations that he uncovered in Spook Street.

 

Herron is adept at characterisation. He gets you invested in the slow horses, even though, to keep things real, he kills off characters as the books go by. His dialogue is spot-on and his characters are consistent, with new one being introduced amid the skullduggery that goes in in the corridors of British Intelligence.

 

The Seiko SKX009K came in handy. There were some days when I was happy to be reminded of what day it was. The day wheel on this watch is in Spanish, hence the 'MAR' is short for 'Martes' (Tuesday), rather than 'March'.

And also, among all the Mick Herron that I read, I also blitzed through Charlie Higson's James Bond novella entitled On His Majesty's Secret Service. 

In this story, Bond is sent to investigate the affairs of a fellow named Athelstan of Wessex, who claims that he is, historically, the rightful heir to England's throne and he plans to disrupt the upcoming coronation of King Charles III. There's more to it than that, but I read it so quickly that I'm having trouble remembering it! I must have been in Slough House too long. It'll need a re-reading at some point. 

I have to say though that it was well written. Higson penned six Young Bond books earlier this century and they were well-received. He has a better understanding of the character of James Bond than many of the continuation authors who have taken a crack at writing a OO7 adventure. 

It would be interesting to read a full-length Bond novel written by him. 

We'll see.

Okay, so I'll park this post here for now. It got a little longer than I thought it would, but it brings things up to speed, as far as the last several months are concerned. 

My wife has been studying over the past two years, working towards a Master's Degree in Counseling and I have been pretty busy at work this year, so we decided that a quick break was in order. We figured a week or so of doing as little as possible might be a good idea, preferably overseas.

So, we organised a short holiday. 

More about that in the next post.

I hope you've all been well and thanks for reading!