Busy Start to 2022 | Part 3 - April to August ; Settling In To New Job / Time To Fix The Place Up / Unexpected Calls + Recent Wristwatches

This post will be longer, as it will cover four months and will ramble on and on, flicking back and forth between April and July. 

Sorry. 

Anyway...

...Early April. The Omega Planet Ocean got a little time on the wrist.

I have a huge jar filled with old matchbooks. They come in handy for lighting the stove-top burners in the kitchen (when we run out of boxed matches) and the gas heaters in the lounge areas of the house. And the occasional incense stick. I also tend to use them in photos here and there. For atmosphere. 

I started reading The Heart of Danger by Gerald Seymour sometime in April. Written in 1995, it concerns a disgraced MI5 operative who now works for a small-time detective agency in the UK. A woman hires him to find out who killed her daughter, who had gone into war-torn Croatia and gotten caught up in the conflict. Seymour was a journalist before turning to fiction writing and he has had a prolific writing career. He writes well, and some passages are hard to get through, as he gives very brief descriptions of the atrocities occurring in this civil war in the former Yugoslavia, leaving the reader to ponder them afterwards, using their imaginations to fill in the gaps. I have two or three other books of his on my espionage shelf. One of them is an uncorrected proof copy of Holding The Zero, which I got back in the late '90s when I worked at a Borders bookstore. 

 

"What's wrong with your arm?", asked the girl behind the coffee machine as she was making me a latté on that Thursday afternoon in April.

I was taking a picture of the machine's logo with my watch in the frame, so I held up my arm at a slightly awkward angle while using my other hand to tap my iPhone's screen in order to focus the shot of the Tudor Ranger on my wrist.

"Oh, it cramps up sometimes along the forearm", I replied as I slid my phone back into my pocket and fished out a five dollar note to pay for the coffee. That wasn't a total fib, mind you. This forearm cramp actually happens from time to time with my right arm. If I reach into my inside-left jacket pocket with my right hand, my forearm muscle 'locks up' and feels quite tight, making it difficult for me to straighten my wrist. Gotta get that looked at someday, but it's a difficult thing to replicate in a doctor's office, as it doesn't happen to me all the time.

La Marzocco is a coffee machine manufacturer and I had never heard of them until about five or six years ago when it seemed that they were suddenly everywhere. The brand must've launched a very aggressive expansion campaign at some point because they appear to have muscled their way in to a lot of restaurants and cafés in recent years. Nice machines, and I have been told that they are one of the biggest sellers in Italy. 

 

July 10th, 2022

                         The extra solar panels have been installed. The battery has been fitted to a wall in the carport. Now we just have to wait for some dude from the solar energy authority to come around and inspect the work and sign off on it.

Okay, I forgot where this blog post was heading from here. Oh, that's right, work has begun on the main bathroom. And, like any renovation, the time-frame and pricing have both stretched out a little. To be expected, I guess.

This is the bathroom located to the rear of the house, close to the kid's bedrooms, so basically, they use it. The main bedroom has a tiny en-suite attached to it. My wife and I will consider getting it fixered/uppered at some point in future. 

 

A few other watches worn in April;

 

It's been ten years since my Mother died. And as the saying goes, time marches on regardless. 

I light a candle for both of my parents every year on the anniversaries of their passing and I lit a candle for them at Notre Dame when my family visited Paris in 2016, and again at a number of churches throughout Rome during the remainder of the trip. It seemed like a fitting thing to do. I think it's a tradition that I'll continue whenever I travel. 

The watch seen in this photo is a Swatch watch that I bought for Mum sometime back in the early '90s. She used to wear an automatic Citizen watch that she got back in the 1970s, but that watch stopped working a long time ago. 

The crown on this Swatch seems to be on its last legs, as it's heavily worn down. This watch was definitely put through its paces over the years and I was surprised to find that it still worked once I had a new battery installed. I bought a new rubber strap for it, because the existing metal bracelet was stretched and I couldn't be bothered removing any links from it to size it up for my wrist. I may wear it from time to time, or I just might 'archive' it. 

I bought a bamboo tray six months ago and my plan is to make a 'box frame' out of it. I plan to display my Dad's Gillette safety razor, Wyler wristwatch, and Identity Card that he received when he landed on these shores in 1952. Along with these items of his, I'll add a ring that Mum wore, one of her neck scarves, and this Swatch watch. Ideally, it will still be working, so that this box frame of items will also double as a wall clock.

This mid-1960s Seikomatic Weekdater always brings up images in my head of Japanese brands that I don't see around much anymore. Sanyo, Datsun, National Panasonic, for example. Sure, Datsun was renamed Nissan at some point, but the old name has more of a classic '60s and '70s vibe to it. 

This Weekdater can be a hassle to set the day and date function on, but it's a nice watch nonetheless. And this one is a pretty clean example, too.

 

 

 

Saturday, July 23rd, 2022

                          My wife and I still have these 'flu's, for crying out loud! 

I was feeling better on Thursday and then woke up yesterday with a spiky throat and spent the day at work filling my office bin (trash can) with dirty Kleenex. Keeping Kimberly-Clark in the black!

I wonder if it had anything to do with Wednesday?

 

DISSOLVE TO: 

 

INSERT - TYPECAST PAGE ONE

 

 

And that's where things currently stand. Wait a sec. This post is all over the place, with its back-and-forth approach. 

Let me consult my diary and see if I can add a little more to an already long post. 

APRIL

 

I had the porcelain crowns fitted to the implants that I had done back in August last year. And thus ends this long saga. Bit of luck, I'll still be able to chew on steak when I'm an old man. The dentist did tell me to floss more, and to start using an electric toothbrush as well. Man, so much to remember! I had some mild toothaches and associated headaches in the first few weeks after this procedure, but now (late July), things seem to have settled down. So that's the top part of my body sorted. I wore the Omega Railmaster 36mm on the day I had this procedure done. This is a great watch, one of my favourites, and one that I'll hold on to. 

This here is the Casio MRW-200H-1B. It's all plastic, which makes it very, very light. It's battery-powered, so you can just set it and forget it. It's got luminous hands and markers, although they are not very bright. It's 100metres water-resistant, so you could wear it snorkeling if you wanted to. It's got a day and date feature. Its $38AUD off eBay. Which makes it pretty easy to forgive its shortcomings. And yes, the bezel rotates. Very handy for lunch breaks and parking meters.
This would make a very good travel watch. If it got lost or damaged, it would be cheap enough to replace. You can also get one in steel for about $60AUD. The specs list it as 45mm in diameter, but I think it may be smaller than that because it sits quite nicely on my 6.5 inch wrist. 

 

Sold this watch in April. Although, I must say, eBay's cut of the profits really took the fun out of the entire process. That place is definitely a buyer's market rather than a seller's. 

Reason I sold this Oris was because I had found it wasn't getting much wear. In the interests of thinning down the collection and getting it to a stable of watches that get regular time on the wrist, I felt it better to move this one along. Also, with a diameter of 40mm, I thought it was a little large for the kind of watch that it is. 

At any rate, its new owner in Canada is enjoying it, and that's the main thing.

 

MAY

 

         Prime Minister Scott Morrison lost the Federal Election. Good. He handled this country's Covid response badly. And that's as politixy as I'll get.

 

I had planned on wearing the Sinn 103 St Sa chronograph one day in May and, as I was setting the time and date on it, this happened. The date disc got jammed between two numbers. Now, since I bought this watch back in 2009 and it has never been serviced (shame on you, Teeritz!), I figured it's well and truly overdue for some attention, so I contacted the Sinn Service Centre and made some enquiries regarding pricing and such. Although, I should also get my wife's Sinn 556a serviced as well at some point, as it's losing about three minutes a day. I got it for her back in 2014, so it's definitely due for some work. 

And the Tudor Ranger got some regular wear in June. I've taken it off the bracelet and put it on a strap.

Tudor released a new Ranger model in early July and it is a dead ringer for this model, except that it measures a modern 39mm in diameter instead of 34mm like this one here. Just as well, I suppose. If it had been, say, 37mm, I'd be in trouble. 

 

I must say, I'm a sucker for a nice expedition watch like this. It makes for a clean and legible dial layout. While there's no real definitive explanation out there regarding this style of watch, my humble opinion states that an expedition watch will tend to have fewer numerals on the dial than a military or pilot's watch, which will usually have all twelve numbers around the dial, unless they remove one for the date window or two for the date window and brand logo (or triangle) at the twelve o'clock position. 

JUNE

           

My Nikon FE had an issue where the shutter wouldn't press down after winding on the film to the next frame. A camera repairer in the city quoted me $320.oo to service it. That was his basic price for servicing any 35mm film camera. I could have sworn his pricing was around $150.oo a couple of years ago. 

So, at the risk of making things worse, I figured I'd take a stab at fixing this issue myself. After some digging on the web, I found photos of how the underside's internals ought to look. There was one thin metal stem on the film advance section of my camera that looked like it wasn't latching on to another stem. Swiss Army Knife pliers to the rescue. Some gentle persuasion and now it looked like it would work as it should. I should mention that I had to unscrew the bottom plate ten or twelve times before I finally sorted this problem out, but the SAK pliers, some sewing machine oil and more than a little patience and I think it's going to work fine when I next load some film into it. 

Keeping time of this procedure was the Seiko SARB033. 

The Seiko Seikomatic Weekdater got a little wear in June. 

I got a lot of time - pardon the pun - for Seiko. You can buy a Seiko watch for less than a hundred bucks, you can buy a Seiko watch for a couple of grand. If you venture into the world of Grand Seiko, you could spend three thousand to fifty thousand. 

While there is talk in the industry that things may change at Seiko over the next year or two, as the new CEO has said that Seiko can no longer be all things to all men, indicating that the brand may no longer offer anything for less than a thousand dollars, in an effort to move the brand a little more upmarket, Seiko has been so prolific for so long that you could easily snag something for a couple of hundred dollars for a long time to come. That was a long sentence!

I bought the audiobook - or rather, a MP3 version of it (Read the fine print next time, Teeritz!) - of The Spy Who Loved Me, read by the wonderful Rosamund Pike. I didn't get a case with the CD, just a plain paper sleeve. 

So it was time to get a little creative. This is the original 1962 1st edition hardback artwork by Richard Chopping (picture from The Manhattan Rare Book Company);

The classic Bond book motifs are there. Chopping's trompe-l'œil style of painting, the knotted timber background, the stencil font. Of Ian Fleming's fourteen 1st Edition James Bond novels published by Jonathan Cape in London, Chopping's artwork would grace the covers of eight of them. 

So, I thought I'd create a sleeve for the CD that would be slipped into a plastic DVD sleeve that I had. First of all, I wanted a picture of Rosamund Pike. Wait a second, I'd better throw in a little bit of back-story;

The Spy Who Loved Me was published in 1962 and was Fleming's attempt at doing something different. It is told in first person, by a woman named Vivienne Michel, a French-Canadian who is escaping a string of failed romances by heading to America. She makes a pit-stop at a small motor-court motel in the Adirondacks, which is closed mid-season and soon visited by a couple of shady thugs who take control of the place and hold her and the elderly owners against their will, and it's not until about two-thirds into the story that James Bond appears.

Fleming wasn't happy with reception to the book. When the Bond film rights were sold to EON Productions, he stipulated that nothing but the title of this book could be used if it were ever made into a film. 

Okay, so I needed a picture of Rosamund Pike. I found a screen-shot from Gone Girl (Dir: David Fincher, 2014), the film that made the world sit up and take notice of Miss Rosamund Pike.    

Next up, the font. I downloaded one called 'Cargo Crate' about seven or eight years ago. I also had a font called Royal Quiet De Luxe (courtesy of Richard Polt's Classic Typewriter Page ) which I wanted to use, since Fleming himself used a Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter. I cropped the photo down from its 16:9 aspect ratio, then ran it through Microsoft Paint so that I could add the text. 

The end result.

Miss Pike's hairstyle in this screen-cap is not properly representative of women's hairdos of the early 1960s, but I love the look on her face in this still. Looking at it now, it suits the Bond story nicely. It could be Vivienne Michel's initial expression upon seeing Bond appear as an unsuspecting guest at the motor court. She now knows that these two thugs will most likely rape and murder her before they leave and the appearance of this Englishman at the reception desk gives her some hope, without her knowing who he is or what he does for a living. Or it can also be read as the look of a woman who has just seen another guest arrive at the motel, knowing that he too will be killed by these two criminals before the week is over. 

One more photo, aiming for the counter-top of some second-rate diner of the early Sixties. It's been over thirty years since I last read this book. I should have another read of it, but I've instead started re-reading The Man With The Golden Gun, Fleming's final full-length Bond novel. 

Reason being that I recently purchased Anthony Horowitz's final Bond continuation novel, titled With A Mind To Kill, and it takes place about two weeks after the events of TMWTGG. So, I thought I'd read it again as a refresher.

I've got a couple of other books on the go as well at the moment. The Best of A.A. Gill is a collection of the late, great journalist/critic Gill's articles covering a variety of topics, from airports to Uganda, from New York to vegetarians. At times very funny, at times very moving, it's a reminder of what a gifted writer we lost back in 2016. 

This Seiko 5 DX 6106-8180 model from 1969 was on the chopping block for a few months. Then, I thought about getting a new strap for it to see how it would look. 

The case shape is very reminiscent of watches from that era and I figured I'd try turning it into a driver's watch. Not that there's any true definition of what that kind of watch would be, but I thought if I put a Rally strap onto the watch, it might jazz it up a little. Rally straps are called that because they have perforations in the leather, and this is meant to mimic the look of driver's gloves, which have those cool-looking holes on the knuckles, designed, presumably,  to provide a little breathability from the leather while driving. 

 

This picture, taken from...

The Gentleman's Journal | How to Wear Driving Gloves (Without Looking Like an Idiot)
 

...shows the type of gloves that I'm talking about. While I have worn leather gloves while driving on cold Winter mornings, I'm not sure that they go well with a 2006 Mazda 3 hatchback. These seem better suited to wooden dashboards and steering wheels, as evidenced in this photo. Still, in my own defence, my car is a stick-shift, with a candy-apple red paint job. 

Anyway, back to the watch strap, I opted for something that would give the watch a sportier, automotive edge. The watch has a gold-toned chapter ring surrounding the dial, so I looked for a strap that would have a little gold stitching, but this was to no avail. In the end, I settled for orange stitch. 

 

 

The bathroom renovation that was started in the second week of July is still ongoing at the time of writing. The builder found some asbestos (natch) in the walls, so that had to be removed before the work could continue. Then, over on another wall there was a patch of black mould. This was due to a leaky tap (faucet) in the laundry. 

Meanwhile, the electrician discovered a live wire in the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen. The fun never ends. 

September 4th.

I've just been very busy with work, and this flu has knocked us all around for quite a while. I first noticed my sore throat in late June. A few weeks ago, I made a doctor's appointment and was given a heap of medication to knock this thing on its head. It worked. By the end of August, I was finally back to whatever level of health I had before I got sick. My son got over his bout of this flu and my wife also saw her doctor about getting some medication for hers. It's been a nasty one this year, folks. 

My bunion op is now ten days away, and there's other personal stuff going on that I won't go into. Suffice it to say that these are some stressful times I'm living in right now. 

However, glass-half-full and all that. 

Speaking of glasses, this one had a Dry Martini in it - along with a toothpick and three slivers of lemon peel  - on a Friday night in July when I wore the Omega Railmaster. I've been adding a little more vermouth to my Martinis lately, just to see if A) I'd notice the difference, and B) whether or not I might prefer a little more vermouth in them. 

Jury's still out. 

I was drinking less (as in not at all) while I had the flu, so maybe I'll wait till the upcoming warmer months and maybe try experimenting then. 

Anyway, this post ran off the rails, so I'll sign off soon. 

To finish off, a quick rundown of some of August's watches. 

 

I wore the Citizen Eco-Drive Nighthawk on the first Saturday in August when my son and I had a late-ish breakfast of pancakes and coffee - at the Australian equivalent of IHOP - before catching a morning session of Bullet Train (Dir: David Leitch, Columbia Pictures, 2022). 

I enjoyed this film. Some people have complained of the violence in it, but I thought it wasn't so bad, when compared to a Tarantino flick, for example. The story moved at a nice pace, the action scenes were clever, the funny scenes were well-placed throughout, and the characters were well-written. 

It was nice to see Brad Pitt playing against type also, as a retired killer (with anxiety and conscience-ridden issues regarding his chosen profession) code-named 'Ladybug', who takes on the job of retrieving a briefcase on board the train bound for Kyoto. Problem is, a bunch of other bad-guys want the case as well. 

It's a trope that's been done a million times, so the trick is to put a new spin on this type of story. These days, I don't take too much of my Film Studies sensibilities with me when I go to the movies. First and foremost, I want to be entertained. You know, the reason they started making movies in the first place? 

 

The Omega Speedmaster got some wear in August as well. It's on a crappy leather strap at the moment and I think I'll either rub it down with some moisturising cream or put a newer strap on it. Right now, I'm leaning more towards sprucing up this current strap. Get a little more life out of it.

 

And I think that's it for now. Apologies for the rambling nature of this post. I should have written it months ago. 

Alas, life got in the way. As mentioned, my bunion procedure is happening in a week-and-a-half and I'm a little nervous about it. Mainly to do with the anaesthetic and how I'll go with it and how I'll come out of it. I'll only be in hospital overnight and then it's around six to eight weeks of recovery time, assuming there are no post-op complications. The first two weeks is where I'll need to keep the feet elevated. Of course, I'm also thinking about showering and sleeping, but I'll figure these out as they occur. 

Work-wise, I'll work from home, as best possible, once the recovery process is underway. 

 

Either way, we'll see how it all goes. If I feel up to it, I may do short posts during my recovery period. 

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

Busy Start to 2022 | Part 2 - February & March; New Job / New Old Spies / Newer Job!

One of the watches I wore in January was this recent arrival. A late 1965 Seiko Seikomatic Weekdater. I was after a dress watch with both day and date function. This one was in very clean condition, with no blemishes on the dial and no naked-eye-visible corrosion on the hands and markers. Just the usual scuff marks and light scratches on the case that are evidence of daily wear and tear. 

I spoke to a watchmaker who collects vintage Citizen watches of the 1960s. He said that an old watchmaker once told him that these old Seiko and Citizen watches were deliberately built to stand up to a lot of wear and tear. 

Reason being that they were relatively inexpensive back in the day and therefore, when it came time to get them serviced, it would be difficult for the customer to justify spending, say, $20 or $30 to service a wristwatch that cost them $80 or $100 to originally purchase. The way around this was to build a watch that could go a decade or two before it required maintenance. 

Properly looked after, these things would run a long time before servicing was needed, and while I see a lot of old Seiko watches that have been trashed over their lifetimes, I also see a few pieces like this one, which appears to have been taken care of by its previous owner(s). 

Okay, where was I up to? Ahh, yes...

After the initial training period over the first couple of weeks, I settled into the routine of my job and its workload. As stated, everyone was great to work with. I made a few little changes here and there, such as the layout and wording of emails that are sent to customers. 

I answered customer enquiries and concerns regarding the whys and wherefores of their repairs. This is the part of the repair process where a customer will either accept or decline a repair quotation. I felt it was my job to explain the reasons behind a repair, in order to help a customer make an informed decision. 

One gentleman, an ex-engineer, was disappointed by the fact that his quartz watch needed a new movement. He was given the watch by his employers as a retirement gift in 1993. In NINETEEN-NINETY-THREE. 

"They told me it was the best watch of its kind and that it would last forever", he opined. 

I reminded him that it had served him faithfully for almost thirty years. 

I reminded him that it was probably not a good idea to have had the previous battery change done by somebody who was not accredited by the brand, as it seemed that the incorrect battery had been fitted and the movement had drawn insufficient power from it and this may have done some damage to the movement.

I reminded him, gently, that his engineering firm should not have made blanket statements like "it would last forever", because they were an engineering firm, not a wristwatch manufacturer. 

I informed him that, being a tiny machine that runs 24/7, it requires maintenance from time to time, and that the movement inside the watch has reached its end-of-life and now needs replacing. 

In the end, all of this was enough to convince him to get the watch fixed. Hopefully, it will outlive him. And possibly me too.

READ IN FEBRUARY

I re-read Fleming's Live And Let Die. I had my brother's old paperback copy for reading on the train, and a Folio Society hardback copy on the bedside table at home.                                               There were a few flat spots in the book, or maybe they were just passages that I wasn't thrilled by, mainly to do with...I can't remember. Maybe old gold coins and pirates.                                               At some stage, I'll tackle the next one, Moonraker. Figured I'd slowly go through them all again, interspersed with other reading.                              The Omega Railmaster got a decent run here and there. 

So anyway, the job was going okay. About a month or so into it, I got an email from a company that had seen my resume online and they were interested in discussing it further. This was an appliance company, totally different to what I was doing. They were offering noticeably more money and it was a supervisory position. 

Now, normally, I wouldn't look twice at a job like this, but my wife's contract at her job is to end in June and it looks like it won't be renewed this time around. The company she works for doesn't have the funding and it is relying more heavily on young volunteers doing industry placement. She's had her contract extended twice in the past. At the moment, she's studying online for a Masters Degree in Counseling, working at this job three days a week, and volunteering as a counselor elsewhere one day a week. So basically, her plate is pretty full and the paying aspect of it may be coming to an end if she doesn't find something else soon. 

Therefore, it made sense to me to consider this appliance supervisor's gig. It would be a change of scenery, for one thing, whether that was a good thing or not. I did the math, considered it carefully, and regretfully handed in my resignation at the watch company. It really sucked saying goodbye to this job. The HR manager did say to me that if the grass wasn't greener on the other side, I should consider coming back, as there are always opportunities coming up at this company.                                        

That was a wonderful thing to hear. And it is something that I will seriously consider if things don't work out. 

So, while I was winding up my time at this job, I contacted my referees to let them know (again) that they might get a call from a company asking to know a little more about me. Things got a little strange here because one referee asked me how committed I was to starting work at an appliance company, of all things. Reason he asked was because his company was looking for a new Service Centre Manager and would I be interested in this role?     

Man, oh, man. All of a sudden, I'm in some kind of demand. Felt weird. I asked him for a snapshot of the role and he filled me in. I told him I'd give it some serious thought. I called him back a few days later and we hashed it out a little more. He sent me the Position Description via email.  Yep, I could do this job. Easily.                                                                                                                                          So, I accepted the job. I was due to commence the appliance supervisor's job in around two weeks (I got a bit of a run-around with this job, but that's a whole other convoluted story). Anyway, I contacted the appliance company and regretfully informed them that I had been offered a position in the industry that I was coming from and had decided to accept it, so therefore, I would not be going forward with joining their company. I apologised to them, but they seemed cool enough about it. I'm sure these things happen often enough. 

Leading up to all of the above was the slight mental anguish that I put myself through for a couple of weeks prior to accepting the offer from my old employer. My wife thought it wasn't such a wise idea. Never go back, is her motto when it comes to workplaces. I reminded her that back in the day, I worked the retail side of the company and this time around, I'd be behind the scenes, so to speak. 

You do you. You're an adult, she replied. Well, we'll see about that, in due course. 

Twenty/twenty-two seems to be the year of espionage fiction for me. If I'm at a thrift store and I see a good-condition hardback copy of a book that I have in paperback, I tend to buy it. Some other books might get replaced by a version with a nicer cover art. Like this early le Carré. The plain covered copy is from the 1970s and it shows. A lot of fiction tended to favour a cover with bold font and maybe just a splash of colour. Which is fine, of course. After all, you don't buy a candy bar for the wrapper. 

However, given the choice between the one on the right and the one on the left, I'd go for the atmospheric one on the left. And so I did. The white-covered one ended up in a bag for the thrift store. Also in the frame is the '82 Submariner 5513, which I wore here an there through February.  

Of course, sometimes, I find that I have multiple copies of the same title. This occurs with almost all of my Fleming Bond novels, and I've also found that I have three copies of two Len Deighton titles. 

 

The classic early 1960s first edition artwork by Raymond Hawkey, which the publishers Hodder & Stoughton considered 'disgusting'. 

As the book is concerned with a slightly shady working-class military man who is seconded to a small branch of British Intelligence, it presents us a virtual polar opposite to Fleming's Bond. The unnamed hero of this book is smart-alecky, smokes French cigarettes and knows his way around a kitchen. 

The book was made into an atmospheric film in 1965 starring Michael Caine as Harry Palmer. It might be okay to have an unnamed hero in the book, but the movie needed somebody with a name. This film was produced by Harry Saltzman, one half of EON Productions, the company that produces the Bond films. Caine made two more Palmer films in the '60s and he has stated that he wished he had made a few more. Although he starred in two more Palmer movies in the 1980s, these were forgettable, straight-to-video releases that weren't based on any of Deighton's novels. 

 

In the '80s, I picked up this copy. The layout owes much - if not all - to Hawkey's classic cover from 20 years earlier. This is the copy that I first read in 1987. 

Like a lot of paperback thrillers published in the '80s, it has a bold upper-case block font with the author's name above the title. They began to resemble movie posters. Again, we have a seedy picture that conveys boredom and frustration. To me, anyway. Did the cup of tea go cold? Was it too weak? Has the cup been washed recently or is he just refilling it, leading to the cup-ring stains on the desk/table? Could our protagonist not find an ashtray? Or was he too lazy to go get it? And on and on. The constant motifs are the revolver, a beautiful Smith & Wesson hammerless .38, and the Gauloise cigarette. 

Len Deighton's works have been reprinted in the last year or so and the cover art has been atmospheric. Although, I have a bug with this new version of The Ipcress File. 

 

The grip of the revolver is ridged. Now, I'm no expert on firearms, but this type of butt is a relatively modern - as in, post 1980 - addition to pistol design. So, for me, the allusion to mid-Sixties Cold War espionage breaks down a little because of the inclusion of this particular pistol. Of course, throwing in a pair of '60s Michael Caine-style glasses and a Leica M1 rangefinder camera draws a clear line to both the era in which the book was written and filmed. 

Anyway, this new reprint was the copy that I would read, because the font was a tad larger than that of my older copies. Feeling a little creative, I felt that this book needed its own bookmark. A quick hunt across the internet yielded some photos and a quick rummage through my 'props box' supplied the rest. 

Arranged the items on the photocopier and hit the  "START" button. 

I was a bit bummed by the streaks running down the photos of Michael Caine, but looking at them now, it adds to the lack-of-proper-budget aspect of the Intelligence branch that Harry Palmer works for. I do like the way the coffee ring turned out. I spent some time ruling the thick lines onto the 3x5 index card and then typing in the text, so I was gonna be pretty pissed off if the coffee ring didn't turn out the way I wanted. That Gauloises packet has been empty since '89, by the way. 

Seen in the frame is the Submariner, which got some wear throughout Feb/March.

Anyway, a few weeks passed and I started my new gig in the last week of March. And it has been busy ever since. The watchmaker and the office manager both said to me that the amount of repairs coming through have been unprecedented. Anyway, that is something that can't be controlled, so all I can do is concern myself with the aspects of the job that I can keep a lid on.  At the time of writing (late May), I'm still riding the learning curve on a daily basis as new situations arise. All good so far.

For me right now, it's just a matter of getting a feel for the job. Is it something that will be interesting and challenging (up to a point) over the long term? Is this the job that I'll retire from? 

Only time will tell is the clichéd response. 

Right now, I just wanna get the hang of the ebbs and flows of the job on a daily and weekly basis, to better determine where I can make changes that'll make it run more efficiently. In my view, of course. 

Well, the Workshop Manager told me to set things up to suit myself, so I just might end up doing that. 

I may make changes here and there that make no discernible difference. If that happens, then I revert back to how things were and see if there may be another way to do things as time marches on.

The changes seem to have more to do with streamlining certain processes rather than making large alterations to how things are done. 

Then again, I just might change things up here and there. 

As you can see, I'm still amidst the whole thought process surrounding these changes. 

Anyway, some other watches worn through February and March;

The 34mm circa 1970 Tudor Ranger, seen here on a Geckota Oyster bracelet.

I've been passively hunting for a Tudor rotor to fit an ETA Calibre 2784, which is the movement inside this watch. 

At some point in this watch's life, it was serviced by a watchmaker who could not access Tudor parts. As such, the rotor in the movement, which had 'TUDOR - PRINCE OYSTERDATE' engraved on it, was replaced with an ETA 2784 rotor, which is blank. It's the correct part for this watch, it just isn't branded. And this affects its value to some reasonable extent. 

If I can find a rotor, great. If not, it's no big deal. Either way, this watch does indeed need a service.

The Seiko SKX009K has been worn a lot since I got it last September. Produced from the mid '90s until around 2019, in my view it deserves cult status along the same lines as classic Swiss-made dive watches. 

Its overall aesthetic can't be mistaken for a Rolex, Omega, TAG Heuer or any other long-produced dive watch made by a big Swiss manufacturer. 

Sure, the timekeeping can be a little fluid, but this watch actually runs quite accurately. The water-resistance is more than adequate, the Hardlex crystal is hard-wearing, and the dial and hands are still readable at 4:00am. 

It's a lot of watch for what it cost.

The Tudor Black Bay 58 is another regular. Still not a 100% perfect fit on my wrist, but this has become the most minor of quibbles for me since I got it back in late December 2020.

Seen in the frame is my 1980s pair of tortoise-shell RayBan Wayfarers, back from when Bausch & Lomb made the lenses. I had prescription sunglass lenses fitted to these frames, so that I could keep them in the car for driving in Summer. They are the Transition lenses which darken in sunlight. Problem is, I don't drive a convertible, so the lenses can only go dark if I hold them in the sun for about ten seconds.  They're bi-focals too, which makes them handy. 

Malfy Gin has been available here in Australia for some time. Only problem was that it was infused with lemon. I don't go for flavoured gins, so I've held off on buying it. Then finally, I stumbled upon this plain version, with the light blue accented label. It's a nice gin. Normally, my tastes in this spirit run towards English gins and nothing else. Bombay Sapphire, Beefeater, Tanqueray, Gin Lane 1751.

In recent years, though, I've dipped a toe (or tongue would be more accurate) in Gins from other countries;

 

- Roku (Japan). My wife bought me a bottle a few Christmases ago because she liked the shape of the bottle (octagonal) and the texture of the label. Very crisp. You have to hand it to the Japanese. Whenever they try their hand at something that some other country is renowned for, they bat it out of the park. Grand Seiko is their answer to Rolex. Yamazaki is Suntory's answer to Single Malt Whisky.

- Aviator (USA). Cool bottle, and it's owned (or was) by actor Ryan Reynolds. I like the idea of American-made Gin. Gives it a Prohibition-era vibe. Some say this gin is a little hit-and-miss, but I haven't found any issues with it. Although it makes for a workmanlike Gin & Tonic, I made a Dry Martini with it and it was sharp. 

- Citadelle (France). Again, it works nicer as a Martini than it does as a mixer. Actually, that may not be true. That statement, which I also said about Aviation Gin, might have more to do with my palate getting accustomed to the taste of tonic water, and I have found that I tend to buy different brands of tonic and some of them have added ingredients. This in itself changes the taste of a G&T. 

There's a brand called MGC, which stands for Melbourne Gin Company. Over the last five years or so, I've seen a bunch of new gins hit the market and some of them are made here in Australia. I've been tempted to try them, but I find their pricing insulting. I ain't paying 80 bucks for a gin made in my home town. 

Also in that photo are three different copies of Len Deighton's Funeral In Berlin. I'll have to get rid of one.

And finally, one more watch worn earlier this year. The Hamilton Khaki Field Auto. This one gets mainly worn for gardening and handyman duties, but every now and then, it ends up on my wrist for a normal day's work. I daresay it probably requires a service, as some fine brass metal filings can be seen through the sapphire crystal case-back. I haven't done a timekeeping check on this watch, but I'd be fairly certain that it's probably out of factory specifications. 

 

Okay, so that's the second and third month of the year covered. I think I'll leave it there and maybe get started on April and May. 

Then this blog will be up to speed. 

 

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

Busy Start to 2022 | Part 1 - January; Seriously, Boss? / Happy Birthday, Son!

I began this post at the beginning of the year, but things soon got very hectic. Subsequently, in an effort to put it all down, I thought I'd get it underway, but rather than one very long post, I'll see if I can break it up into a few parts. 

Anyway...

 

I handed in my resignation on December 30th. I'd had enough. I'd spent nearly six years working for a guy who behaved like a ramped-up version of David Brent (UK) or Michael Scott (US) from The Office, but without the laughs. Worst boss I've ever had. Can't say any more about it. 

 

So, I quit on the second-last day of 2021. Same day, one of my co-workers said he had a sore throat. He'd spent Christmas visiting his family interstate and claimed that he had the air-con on in his car for the entire five-hour drive back to Melbourne. Reckoned that he must've caught a chill. 

 

I gave four-week's notice - as per my contract - and was told that I could finish up on January 24th. Cool. I could tie up a few more loose ends, even though I was virtually up to date with everything. 

Next day, I was told that I could finish at end-of-day, since the office would be closing for the year and would re-open in the first week of January 2022. Okay, no problem. I could use a rest before I began my next job. 

Happy New Year!

                             Finally popped open that bottle of Piper-Heidsieck champagne that I bought in 2015. 

On Sunday January 2nd, I felt a raspiness in my throat. I figured I was coming down with a Summer cold, most likely brought on by the stressful and busy few weeks in the lead-up to Christmas and my resignation just before New Year's Eve. I must have gotten a little run-down. 

My son has had a persistent cough for over a month. He caught a cold from his sister. He usually takes a couple of puffs of Symbicort for his asthma each morning, but has run out of the inhaler and, like any young adult, has been a little bit lax with refilling his prescription. 

 

To play it safe, he and I decide to go get Covid tested next day. The testing station is banked-up with cars. I'm waived over to another lane with a few other cars. I sit behind the wheel for a few minutes and then I get out of my car, put on my mask, and approach the car in front of mine. I ask the driver if he knows why we were directed into this lane. He tells me that the testing station is full for today and he was told to try coming back tomorrow. Dammit!

My son and I head home and we try again the next day at around midday. A sign at the entrance states;

Covid Testing Closed due to High Demand.

We try again the day after that. Same thing. I hear one of the traffic wardens tell another driver to "Come back tomorrow at around six am."

 

By now, I've had a very sore throat, a runny nose, aching back, slight fever, and a cough for the past couple of days. Feels like a 'flu, but is most likely the Omicron variant of Covid-19. We are all double-vaxxed in my household, and my wife and I have also had the booster shots. 

As an asthmatic who smoked for 35 years, my main concern is if I develop a shortness of breath. This has not happened so far, but it's the one main symptom that I am closely monitoring for.

 

January 7th

                      My son and I get up at 6:30am and get to the testing station just before seven.

We get tested a few minutes before ten am and then head home. We're told that we should receive our results within the next 72 hours. 

 

Meanwhile, my wife and daughter go and get tested on Sunday the 9th. 

My son gets an SMS message on his phone a couple of days later. Result is Positive. My wife and daughter get their results next day. Positive. I'm yet to hear back, but obviously, if they've all tested positive, chances are virtually 100% that I'll test positive also. 

 

January 13th and I still haven't heard back. I'm pissed off with my co-worker for not going to get tested when he had a sore throat. I'm very pissed off with my boss for not sending the co-worker home to get tested. Very sloppy outcome. No duty of care on my employer's part, no logic or consideration on my co-worker's part. 

Like my wife has sometimes said; You wouldn't want to be on a lifeboat with these kinds of people.

Current guidelines for Covid testing - once you've gotten tested, you are to isolate for seven days. If you receive a negative result during that time, you're in the clear. If you receive a positive result in that time, you must continue to isolate until the seven days are up. By this stage, you are no longer contagious and can go out in public again. 

I get a text message on January 16th, stating that I had tested positive for Covid. Of course, by now, I no longer have symptoms. If that was Covid, then it was like a moderate bout of the 'flu. The sore throat was the worst part of it. 

Glad it's over, though. 

Get vaxxed, people.

I wore the Seiko SKX009K while I sat behind the wheel at the testing station for three hours. Just as well I brought a book;

Anyway...

I may have mentioned this before, but I have strong memories of my Dad wearing this watch. He used to work night-shift as a machinist at a textile mill. At around ten pm most nights, I'd glimpse him winding this watch while he waited for the coffee to boil. 

After downing the cup of coffee, he would walk two streets away to the bus stop to catch the 10:50pm bus to Brunswick (Melbourne, not New Jersey). He would arrive at the stop near the Brunswick Town Hall and then walk a few streets to where Peerless Mills was located and begin his shift at 11:30pm.

He wore this watch on an expanding bracelet, but by the time I took ownership of it, the bracelet had snapped and I figured it would look nice on a leather strap. 

January 18th

                     My son and I head into the city to go visit the TAG Heuer boutique. He turned 21 on Christmas Day and my wife and I figured it would be nice to get him a watch of his own, even though he'll inherit my collection one day.

Sort of*. 

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

 

Rewind to a couple of weeks earlier. I fish three or four watches from my collection. They are all basic time-and-date watches in different case diameters. I sticky-tape a ten cent coin onto the dials of each watch. My test is not about how the watch looks, but how it sits on the wrist. 

We sit down with our boy and I go through the basic idea of a classic Gent's Watch. Something in stainless-steel, that just tells time and date. A watch that won't date. A watch that works well whether you're 21 or 91. 

 

But first, let's look at sizing. He already has a Seiko dive watch that I got him when he turned sixteen. It's 42mm in diameter and is built to take a beating. However, a day-to-day watch should perhaps be a little more understated. A little more all-purpose. 

Firstly, the 34mm Tudor Ranger goes onto his wrist. 

Then, the 36mm Omega Railmaster.

Finally, the 38mm Seiko SARB033. 

All three of these are basic pieces.

He leans towards the size of the Seiko. That's cool. I've done my research and have looked into two brands that both offer something in 39mm. Sure, one millimetre larger than his preference, but I doubt he'll notice. 

I explain to him that I'm aiming for a watch that will do virtually everything. So, my criteria would be the following; 

- Time and date

- Mechanical (for longevity and heirloom aspect)

- Water-resistant, minimum 100 metres (I don't care what anybody says, that's the minimum for peace-of-mind days at the beach, jumping into a hotel pool, or snorkeling)

- Luminous dial markers and hands (for readability in the dark)

- Metal bracelet (you can always put a leather strap to it later if you want)

As I said, two brands came to mind; TAG Heuer and Tudor. And within those two brands, two different models;

One of them is a Tudor Style, in 34mm 38mm and 41mm;

 

It ticks a lot of the boxes. 38mm is the right size, 100m water-resistance, nice black dial, date window, steel bracelet. 

However, it lacks one crucial element, in my humble opinion. The hands have no lume in them. There's no glow-in-the-dark stuff in them. You're sitting in a cinema watching a boring movie, you won't be able to check the time to see how much longer you'll have to sit there. You wake up in the middle of the night and glance over at your watch on the nightstand and all you're gonna see is more darkness. 

Deal-breaker.  

Not so much if this watch was part of a collection, whether it be two other watches or 20. But as a watch to wear on any and all occasions, well...deal-breaker.

 

 

So, that left us with TAG Heuer. 

 

But first, a digression.

 

Now, before I get into it, I just want to say that I have a lot of respect for the TAG Heuer brand. Back in my watch selling days, my store would get a lot of customers coming in for TAGs. Some of them would purchase the watch and would never be seen again, living happily ever after. 

 

Others would come back one, two, three or five years later, ready to purchase their next watch, be it another TAG Heuer or some other brand. 

Basically, TAG Heuer was the gateway brand for a lot of people. It got them interested in a well-made and dependable Swiss-made wristwatch and they would come back for more, regardless of brand. 

Aside from that, I bought myself a quartz TAG Heuer 1000 Series dive watch (left) back in 1987 and it served me very well.

I should have kept that watch, but I stupidly sold it back in the early days of my watch collecting life. Yes, yes, it was two-tone and strongly borrowed from Rolex design, and it was battery-powered. 

But it was the Eighties, after all. 

The brand used to be known as Heuer and it made some very respectable chronographs in the '60s and '70s before falling on hard times in the late l970s, along with a lot of other Swiss watch brands, thanks to the influx of inexpensive quartz-operated watches that had been coming out of Asia for almost a decade. 

Just as Heuer was going under, along came a company called Techniques d'Avant Garde. This company supplied equipment and resources to the motorsport industry, such as Formula One. A search through the internet can bring up many photos of F1 drivers from the 1970s wearing Heuer wristwatches. The brand, predominantly through the efforts of Jack Heuer, great-grandson of the brand's founder, saw its watches on the wrists of Formula One greats like Niki Lauda and Clay Regazzoni. If you ever want to read about this, visit a website called Calibre 11. It's perhaps the best site about Heuer. 

Here's a link;

calibre11.com | Before the Ambassadors: Heuer & Formula 1

 

Man, another long post! Okay, so where was I? Oh yeah, the Tudor didn't fit the bill, so we looked at TAG Heuer. Specifically, the Carrera Automatic. Heuer created a chronograph in the mid 1960s and named it the Carrera, after the legendary - and short-lived - Carrera Panamericana road race;

The Carrera Panamericana was a border-to-border sedan (stock and touring and sports car) rally racing event on open roads in Mexico similar to the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio in Italy. Running for five consecutive years from 1950 to 1954, it was widely held by contemporaries to be the most dangerous race of any type in the world.^[1] It has since been resurrected along some of the original course as a classic speed rally.

                                                                   - wikipedia entry

A mid-Sixties Carrera Chronograph (Reference 2447SN), pic courtesy of the phenomenal Calibre 11 website. 

This watch is one of the most famous chronographs ever made, and in my humble opinion, it belongs in the same iconic realm as the Omega Speedmaster Professional, Rolex Cosmonaut, Zenith El Primero A386, and Universal Geneve Compax chronographs of the same era. 

TAG Heuer brought out a re-edition in the late 1990s, remaining pretty faithful to the original design. Shortly after that, the brand introduced a line of watches under the Carrera banner and these have been in production ever since. 

Within this range, there is a nice time-and-date model. Measuring 39mm in diameter, it is water-resistant to 100m and features a discreet date window down at the six o'clock edge of the dial. All stainless-steel case and bracelet, available in black, blue or silver dial, with steel hands and markers. And, one more model with a black dial and gilt hands and markers. 

I ran through the pros and cons of each colour. This was based on what I've learned over the years, but also on my own preferences and opinions. Now, I didn't want to sway his decision in any way. I just wanted him to make as informed a decision as he could. 

Silver dial - Perhaps the dressiest of the bunch. Although, from my experience, the hands can tend to 'blend in' a little against the dial when viewed in low light. 

Black dial - A sportier look overall. Best contrast between dial and hands. The main drawback, if you can call it that, is that just about every brand has a black-dialed dress watch as part of its line-up. 

Blue dial - A very nice shade of Cobalt blue. If blue is your favourite colour, then go for it. If you're gonna worry that a blue dialed watch won't go with certain outfits, then steer clear of this one. More importantly, worry less about the colour of your watch dial and whether or not it'll match your clothes.

Black dial with gilt markers and hands - If I had to choose, this would be the one. Still sporty, with its black dial, but the rose-gold plated hands and markers give the whole watch a nice lift. And in some lighting, the black dial appears to take on a pleasant 'coffee-bean-brown' shade. This is something that I pointed out to my son about this watch. I told him the choice was his. If liked the blue, go for it. If he liked the black, go for it. Etc, etc. 

He chose the black and gold. I had been saving my money over the last few years, in order to pay for a couple of titanium crowns to be  fitted by my dentist and, once I had enough for this procedure, I just kept on saving. 

I called a fellow I know who deals with TAG and managed to get a few bucks off the rrp of the watch. 

 

My wife and I were thinking that it would be an idea to get the case-back engraved, but the watch has a see-through case-back, with very little space left over to add any engraving. Still, I just may look into getting it done. 

 

I have to say that it does look good on his wrist, and I think he likes it, based on the fact that he doesn't normally wear a watch around the house and yet here he was, a week later, with the watch on his wrist while he tackled zombies on the Playstation 4. 

He's worn it to work a few times since he got it and the watch now has some scuffs and marks on it. 

It is now truly his.  

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

*...even though he'll inherit my collection one day. Sort of. 

 

I think I've said this here before; Giving my watch collection to my kids would be more a curse than a blessing. My daughter has said she has dibs on the Rolex Submariner, but I told her that that watch would be sold upon my demise - if I still have it when I kick the bucket - and the proceeds would be shared between her and her brother. 

 

I'd let them choose two or three watches each. The rest would/should be sold and the proceeds split between them.  I'd also reiterate to them that these watches require care and feeding. 

Anyway, hopefully, it's not something I'll have to deal with for quite some time yet. 

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