Happy New Year
I glanced at my watch this morning.
Something caught my eye – the date. The First of January? That can’t be right? I know it’s a bit cooler today than it was yesterday but we sat out in the garden yesterday and that’s not something I would normally do mid-winter.
I checked the time. That was right. Just after eleven. So I checked the digital time. 6:45am. There’s something wrong here? It’s bright outside, or rather it’s a hell of a lot brighter than it should be if this is January.
I happen to know what the date is supposed to be today because it’s Grandson the Younger’s birthday. He’s eleven but I swear it was only a year or two since he was in Infants Class. But if it’s January then I was a bit hasty yesterday bringing down a wee gift for him?
Anyhows – back to the watch – I fired up the laptop and sure enough it’s April and it’s even the 25th. Just to be sure, I checked my phone. It also thinks it’s the 25th of April. Bugger! The watch has been out voted so it must be at fault. But why? Or how?
I’m quite fussy about watches. My needs are simple but it’s amazing how difficult it is to find a watch that satisfies my simple needs. I want an analogue display because it’s what I’m used to. The hands on the display should be a contrasting colour to the back so I can read the watch in dim light. I would also want it to display the day and date as they frequently confuse me. I want it to be reasonably long-lasting, so no plastic straps or knobs that will break off, but I want it to be cheap reasonably priced.
The watch I have now I bought some years ago. It has all my requirements including a moxy load that I don’t want and have never used. It has a stop-watch, an alarm, an ability to tell the time in other cities and stuff like that. It can even store phone numbers which is a bit fucking stupid as it isn’t a phone. Presumably if I want to phone someone I will have a phone and that can store my numbers for me? It also is supposed to have a ten year battery but I can’t remember when I bought it. Leastwise it has always kept perfect time, or at least as near perfection as my needs require. The only thing that’s wrong with it is that it has silver hands and a silver dial which is a bit fucking stupid, but it’s something I learned to live with. All good, until now.
Just in case my watch is going wonky I did a quick search online. Fuck but they’re getting pricey? And they are starting to add “features” that would drive me demented. I do not want to know what my hearbeat is. Nor do I want to know my altitude or how deep I am underwater [if I’m that deep, I’m drowned anyway so what’s the point?]. I do not want my watch to connect to the Interweb as that is pointless also. Also I just want a plain dial and not one that’s cluttered up with mini-dials all telling me the phase of the moon or the state of the tide or some equally pointless tripe.
I gave up searching and with some difficulty programmed the date and time back in so it is now correct again.
But just in case I’m wrong and the watch was right: Happy New Year everyone.
Likewise (almost). Despite years in IT, I just want an analogue watch, easy to read, I prefer no date/day, and hopefully with the old-fashioned luminosity that sent my school physics lab's geiger counter totally bananas back in 1965.
Not easy to find at a sensible price.
It's been a Timex basic quartz watch for me (hour, minute, and second, hands are the only requirement) for as long as I can remember. No date window needed or wanted. If I could find a decent analog auto-winder that kept decent time I'd go for that as well. At least with a Timex (I'm really not plugging Timex here) you can still change the battery yourself. Others, not so much. Once the back is snapped on at the factory there's no getting it off.
Hope you get the date straightened out.
Check your local auction house, there's usually box-loads of decent watches from house-clearances which you can buy for peanuts. Lots of choice of dials, straps, wind, auto or battery – what's not to like? Usually cheaper than buying a new battery. OK it's probably a dead-man's watch, but he won't complain.
Was gifted a Citizen solar / light powered / charged watch 15 years ago. Dead simple, Black background white luminous numbers. Great. Has day date window, but with my eyesight, not used. Gains about a second a week. Best watch I have ever had.
Original canvas strap rotted in Aussie heat humidity induced sweat in third year. Replaced with stainless steel link strap, bought on line. Perfect since.
I thought the battery or capacitor that holds the charge had failed 7 years ago, but 6 hours on a sunny windowsill fixed it. Dreich Scottish winters and long sleeved woolies was the problem. Not getting enough light to maintain charge.
When a schoolboy I had a Smiths luminous. Used to look through high magnification lens and see the individual sparks of atoms decaying.
You can buy radon beta light luminous watches, but half life is only 12 years
As above I have a Casio wavecepter watch that is now 17 years old, solar powered, analogue face with a digital inset. It is also reset to precise time every 24 hours from the Rugby atomic clock. Shockproof, waterproof to 50m ( quite pointless really since I am neither). It's been brilliant.
I haven't worn a watch since 1979, when I got a rash on my wrist, from a leather strap. I had just bought a Casio pocket calculator which displayed the time, so I used that, until mobile phones came in.
There are clocks in the car, my cellphone, the sound system, the fixed line phones, the TV, the oven, the boiler control, and by the bed.
I can actually guess the time to within ten minutes anyway.
Ive been retired five years, so who needs to know the time anyway.
Similarly retired, about 3 1/2 years.
I also haven't worn a watch since late '70s, although there are a couple in a cupboard.
And I too like to guess the time, woken from sleep or waking from a nap;- also very close.
Rarely more than 10 min out, sometimes closer, but if way out odd times, perhaps the drink?
Not sure (unlikely) whether one might post a EweTube video here, but let me reference one:
Chicago – Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uy0ldI_1HA
I have an Elgin pocket watch that my dad bought me as a graduation present in 1970. As far as watches go, it's the only one I have. It loses 2 or 3 minutes a day. Good enough for me.
When exams take place in school, now, the time has to be digitally displayed at the front, some of the students can't tell the time using an analogue clock.
Ian, that was inevitable I suppose, but a bit sad none the less.