May I have the pleasure of sharing with you a quirky story about a simple watch.
Many of us are no strangers to the fact that the quest for a particular unique timepiece is always a great adventure. We spend many hours scouring the web and beyond for information; sometimes into the wee hours of the night. To the point of sheer neglect of Maslow’s basic psychological needs. Food, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion take a back seat as we become an enchanted Pavlovian canine.
Pavlov was well loved by his friends?
The passionate desire to have that 999-year adjustment-free perpetual calendar, that bomb-proof submarine steel case amalgamated with space age ceramics, that piece unique with polished bridges that outshine the brightest celestial bodies, that ultra-thin movement with innards that ooze unabated technical tour de force of the horological world……that exit piece of object d’art to add to the treasure chest! (You also promised yourself it would be the last watch…yeah right!.........You get the picture!)
This particular tale comprises the quest for a timepiece that would make the masters turn in their graves. A simple watch housed in a rudimentary cardboard box. To the disdain of the great Abraham-Louis Breguet perhaps; a watch that houses a movement that vibrates at 32768 Hz to be precise!
By God! it’s a quartz watch housed in this box
How far would you go to acquire a single monumental timepiece?
This story is very different - no high tech materials, no polished bridges, not even an Albert Pellaton winder in sight.
However, this particular journey has all the prerequisites of a good story: Long arduous travel to a foreign land in very extreme conditions. A journey into the unknown like the explorer Pedro Teixeira (who incidentally asked for a oversized Portuguese watch for his travels). A journey filled with conquests of fears and for personal betterment.
Our journey begins, like all great adventures, at midnight.
It starts in the Far East - Singapore to be precise.
The first phase of the journey is to a destination 10258km away - Frankfurt ahoy!
We board a 2359hrs flight bound for frankfurt.
Faced with the prospect of 12 hours of flight.
"Essential" reading material was necessary.
We finally arrive in Frankfurt....and its off again to Helsinki on a connecting flight
We stay the night in the Hilton @ Helsinki Airport itself...
And you guessed it......off on another flight, this time from Helsinki to Kittila in the north of Finland
Kittila is IN the Arctic Circle and in the Northern part of Finland (Lapland)
* No! No!...Lapland is NOT that Stringfellows Gentleman's Club in London....*faint*
The internal flight in Finland was pretty amusing.
How often does one see this on an aircraft? Priceless!
Many of us are no strangers to the fact that the quest for a particular unique timepiece is always a great adventure. We spend many hours scouring the web and beyond for information; sometimes into the wee hours of the night. To the point of sheer neglect of Maslow’s basic psychological needs. Food, sex, sleep, homeostasis and excretion take a back seat as we become an enchanted Pavlovian canine.
Pavlov was well loved by his friends?
The passionate desire to have that 999-year adjustment-free perpetual calendar, that bomb-proof submarine steel case amalgamated with space age ceramics, that piece unique with polished bridges that outshine the brightest celestial bodies, that ultra-thin movement with innards that ooze unabated technical tour de force of the horological world……that exit piece of object d’art to add to the treasure chest! (You also promised yourself it would be the last watch…yeah right!.........You get the picture!)
This particular tale comprises the quest for a timepiece that would make the masters turn in their graves. A simple watch housed in a rudimentary cardboard box. To the disdain of the great Abraham-Louis Breguet perhaps; a watch that houses a movement that vibrates at 32768 Hz to be precise!
By God! it’s a quartz watch housed in this box
How far would you go to acquire a single monumental timepiece?
This story is very different - no high tech materials, no polished bridges, not even an Albert Pellaton winder in sight.
However, this particular journey has all the prerequisites of a good story: Long arduous travel to a foreign land in very extreme conditions. A journey into the unknown like the explorer Pedro Teixeira (who incidentally asked for a oversized Portuguese watch for his travels). A journey filled with conquests of fears and for personal betterment.
Our journey begins, like all great adventures, at midnight.
It starts in the Far East - Singapore to be precise.
The first phase of the journey is to a destination 10258km away - Frankfurt ahoy!
We board a 2359hrs flight bound for frankfurt.
Faced with the prospect of 12 hours of flight.
"Essential" reading material was necessary.
We finally arrive in Frankfurt....and its off again to Helsinki on a connecting flight
We stay the night in the Hilton @ Helsinki Airport itself...
And you guessed it......off on another flight, this time from Helsinki to Kittila in the north of Finland
Kittila is IN the Arctic Circle and in the Northern part of Finland (Lapland)
* No! No!...Lapland is NOT that Stringfellows Gentleman's Club in London....*faint*
The internal flight in Finland was pretty amusing.
How often does one see this on an aircraft? Priceless!
Comment