Watch

I've finally got a new wristwatch. The previous one started to disintegrate. Not the casing, which was, I think, stainless steel – presumably the best sort of steel for this type of application, especially as I get a creepy sensation in the presence of rust, and wouldn't really want to have a lump of corroding metal strapped to my arm all day. Not the casing, as I was saying, but the strap, which was a rather attractive fabric-leather hybrid and looked quite smart but had a tendency to fray too readily. Probably needed a hem of some sort, but I don't claim to be an expert in these things. To cut a long story short, after years of frustration and replacement straps (unfortunately you could only replace it with exactly the same sort of strap, which I count something of a design flaw) I gave up on it. This part of the story is not really that interesting. Neither is the next part, of spending weeks looking for a watch that I actually liked, deciding to order one online (a dangerous thing to do, I know, but it seems to be catching on), receiving a wrong (but closely related) model, sending it back, deciding I didn't really much like the one I was originally going to get anyway and so having to start all over again with looking for another one that I actually liked. And so on.

It only goes to prove a couple of irrefutable points. Firstly, that we were far better off in antiquity with physical shops that you could actually walk into. You may have had less choice, but it somehow didn't seem to matter. There may have only been three styles on display, but they all looked fine. Now we can browse thousands of models online, all of which look ridiculous. Secondly, that despite generally having little interest in what might be called fashion, or style, or even how I look, I did find myself to be unusually fussy in choosing a watch. I think it is something to do with the watch face. It somehow seems as personal as a human face, rather than being an anonymous consumer product like a washing machine or sandwich toaster or whatever. I am not sure what this means. Thirdly, I somehow managed to cope for several weeks without a watch on my wrist. Observing the position of the sun was an enormous help, at least in distinguishing night from day.