Jeremy Clarkson (from Top Gear) on "silly watches"

[seanf]

This is from a few years back, but in honor of Top Gear starting up again in a couple of weeks, I thought I'd post this article that Jeremy Clarkson wrote in the Times about the "silly" and expensive watches (i.e., every watch we like). My favorite quote:

Timex can sell you a reliable watch that has a back
light for the hard of seeing, a compass, a stopwatch and a tool for
restarting stricken nuclear submarines, all for £29.99. And that's because
the badge says Timex. Which is another way of saying that you have no style,
no sense of cool and that you may drive a Hyundai.

To justify the enormous prices charged these days, watchmakers all have
idiotic names, like Gilchrist & Soames, and they all claim to make
timepieces for fighter pilots and space shuttle commanders and people who
parachute from atomic bombs into power boats for a living. What's more, all of them claim to have been doing this, in sheds in remote Swiss villages,
for the last six thousand years.


http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.horology/2006-08/msg01123.html

 

[Mobius]

He eats bran flakes cause he thinks grape nuts are too fashionable. He rides a unicycle to work cause its good for the environment and he thinks Michael Moore is the greatest film maker of all time. The only reason he wears Timex is cause it keeps on tickin' after he and the watch went through a serious beat down.

 

[russtang]

Hehe, he is quite a blowhard. I love him.

Contrary to the tone of that article, he's quite a collector. I've seen him on Top Gear wearing a PO, a Bremont, a U-Boat and that B&R he writes about near the end of the article.

 

[Mobius]

Soooo you're sayin' he's also a hipocrit! LOL!

 

[seanf]

Hehe, he is quite a blowhard. I love him.

Contrary to the tone of that article, he's quite a collector. I've seen him on Top Gear wearing a PO, a Bremont, a U-Boat and that B&R he writes about near the end of the article.

I've seen him wear a PO and what looked like a U-Boat. Which is interesting, because whenever I see a U-Boat, I always wonder who buys those awful, ugly things. The answer, apparently, is middle-aged men who can't see numbers very well.

 

[1_robbo]

Clarkson is ace, should be Prime Minister !

 

[seanf]

He also has a 49mm Railmaster

Oops, you're right. I forgot about that one. I've noticed he wears that one quite a bit when he travels. Again with the giant friggin' dial.

 

[russtang]

I've seen him wear a PO and what looked like a U-Boat. Which is interesting, because whenever I see a U-Boat, I always wonder who buys those awful, ugly things. The answer, apparently, is middle-aged men who can't see numbers very well.

Haha. He can't see dial numbers on his wrist, yet he's doing triple digits and burning the tires off a 600HP car just about every episode. Hope he's just farsighted and not completely blind.

 

[rooster133]

Here's another one of his Times articles on watches:


I suppose that in the days when your fishmonger knew your name and what sort of cod you liked on a Friday, “brand loyalty” made sense. Now we live in a world of supermarkets and corporations, it is the most ridiculous thing on all of God’s green earth. No matter how many loyalty cards you have in your wallet.

That said, I am the worst offender. Even though I know Virgin is the best airline, I always try to fly BA. Even though I know HSBC is in fairly good shape, I bank at Barclays. Even though I know the new style of Levi’s reveals my butt crack when I bend over, I would still never buy a pair of Wranglers.

And this brings me neatly onto the question of watches. For some time now I’ve been on the hunt for a new one but the choice is tricky. I couldn’t have a Breitling because I don’t own an Audi. I couldn’t have a Calvin Klein because they are pants, I couldn’t have a Gucci because I’m not a footballist’s wife, I couldn’t have a TW Steel because my wrist isn’t big enough to sport something that can be seen from space, I couldn’t have a Tissot because I’m not eight and the only thing in the world worse than a fake Rolex is a real one.

Have you noticed something odd about Rolexes? Especially the modern ones that wind automatically when you move your wrist about? A great many owners wear them on their right hand. I jump to no conclusions here but you can feel free.


Mostly, though, I cannot wear any of these watches because I am an Omega man. I have worn a Seamaster for years, not because James Bond has one and not because Neil Armstrong wore something by the same maker on the moon but because on the day I went away to school my parents gave me a Genève Dynamic.

The trouble is that for the past few years Omega has been the Pillsbury dough of Swiss watches. The Terry and June. Omegas were dreary. They were boring to behold. They were Vectras in a world of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. The De Ville Prestige, for example, was plainly designed by someone who had a black-and-white telly.

This filled me with despair. I wanted a watch. For the same reasons that I bank at Barclays and wear Levi’s, it had to be an Omega, and it just wasn’t coming up with the goods. It was like Leeds United. Once the home of Peter Lorimer and Gary Sprake but now an also-ran bunch of unimaginative clod-hopping no-hopers.

And then one day, in Hong Kong, I saw it. A new Omega. It’s called the Railmaster and it is a thing of unparalleled beauty. There is no button that owners think will call for help if they find themselves in a crashing helicopter on Kilimanjaro, it is not waterproof to 8,000 metres, there is no stopwatch, there is no swivelling bezel to tell you how much air you have left in your tanks and you even have to wind it up every morning or it will stop. Plainly this is a watch for the sedentary soul. The man with no hang glider or mini sub in his garage. I bought it in an instant.

 

[seanf]

Rooster-- good article, man. Thanks for tracking that down!

 

[avenger007]

+1 Rooster. That was a great read!

This was my favorite quote from Seanf's link:
There's a watch called the Bell & Ross
BR 01-92 which, according to the blurb, is made in Switzerland from German
parts by a company that supplies the American military and is used regularly
by people who make a living by being fired from the gun turrets of Abrams M1
tanks while riding burning jet-skis.

 

[rooster133]

Love him or hate him, Jezza does come up with some pretty awesome calls!! :biglaugh:

 

[takashi]

I think the wore the TW Steel when doing economy challenge from Basel to up north to light up the x'mas tree.

 

[iphreak]

Very cool Rooster.

 

[Fauxlex]

"the only thing in the world worse than a fake Rolex is a real one"

I laughed. Thanks guys for finding this stuff.

 

[levelmanroger]

LOVE Top Gear!!!!!! Jeremy rocks!

 

[Mobius]

Great article! I think I peed my pants laughing!

 

[TheLoveOfBotham]

Clarkson is one of those things in life that reminds you you're not a kid anymore, and soon you will be an old man.

15 odd years ago, when I first became aware of who he was, I couldn't stand the man; I thought he was an arrogant, self-righteous, bigoted toad-of-a-man (a view I still cling to when I hear some of the stuff that comes out of his mouth on Top Gear) and yet, with advancing years, I find myself agreeing with so much of what he says, that I'm frightened that I am becoming that same bitter old man, critical of the new world we find ourselves in, and wishing for a bygone era that perhaps never existed in the first place.

And despite all of this, I'll never miss a show; I love his rants in the Times sometimes; and yes, as much as I'm loathe to admit as such, Jeremy for Prime Minister would be a damn sight better than the current contenders.

And that whole '...only thing worse than a fake Rolex' made me do a little wee too. Damn, old age IS coming faster than I thought!

 

[fakemaster]

It's a shame. He's dead on with much of what he says but then loses credibility by popping up wearing the watches he claims he despises. And his occupation is obsessing over the silliest of all excesses.

 

[russtang]

Clarkson is one of those things in life that reminds you you're not a kid anymore, and soon you will be an old man.

15 odd years ago, when I first became aware of who he was, I couldn't stand the man; I thought he was an arrogant, self-righteous, bigoted toad-of-a-man (a view I still cling to when I hear some of the stuff that comes out of his mouth on Top Gear) and yet, with advancing years, I find myself agreeing with so much of what he says, that I'm frightened that I am becoming that same bitter old man, critical of the new world we find ourselves in, and wishing for a bygone era that perhaps never existed in the first place.

And despite all of this, I'll never miss a show; I love his rants in the Times sometimes; and yes, as much as I'm loathe to admit as such, Jeremy for Prime Minister would be a damn sight better than the current contenders.

And that whole '...only thing worse than a fake Rolex' made me do a little wee too. Damn, old age IS coming faster than I thought!

Haha! Right there with you TLOB.