No beeps from my watch. It's a silent, humble servant, waiting patiently for verbal instructions to set an alarm (a discreet vibration), look up a quick fact or translate pangolin into Polish.

I understand that its uses would be limited for some people, but I find it indispensable for work.

I have a multi bubble gum coloured plastic swatch watch.. with different colour dots instead of numbers. I loves it!

Actually, it wouldn't go amiss being Mr. Tumble's watch.

I got one of the early plastic swatches for going on holiday, back when they first came out. There was something about the plastic that gave me a strange taste in my mouth every time I wore it. I have some weird sensitivity to copper oxides.

But surely as we're all on the uprated EF salary of Chf 150k, you could do both !

This is what I am wearing

Swatch irony...with a metal band...works wonders on the girls too

This Thursday at 10pm Swiss time on BBC 4, a documentary narrated by Nicolas Parkinson on Breguet - perhaps the most famous watch maker ever, and the most famous watch in the world, La Marie-Antoinette (made to order for the Swedish Count Fersen, Marie-Antoinette's lover).

Breguet is now part of Swatch group in Vallée de Joux- but Breguet was born in Couvet in Val-de-Travers, and he did his apprenticeship in a farm on the Swiss-French border with his step-father, between 1760 and 62- before going up to Paris to start his business on Quai des Horlogers in Ile de la Cité.

There is a book published on Kindle, written by an American, John Biggs - about Breguet and the Marie-Antoinette saga, and also on the history of wacth-making in the USA, in particular Philadelphia. I am in the process of translating it into French and hope Breguet will agree to publish it in hard copy.

Today a Danish one from Jacob Jensen, quite like the sleek style

Today's choice: an Omega DeVille GMT. Really like it, and wear it the most.

Did anyone else watch this fabulous documentary- which culminated in Nicolas Parsons holding the original of the Marie-Antoinette, 40 years in making, at the Meyer Museum of Islamic Art in Jerusalem. Absolutely fascinating- and for me especially poignant as Breguet was born very close to where I was born, and did his initial apprenticeship in an old farm just like ours and almost opposite. Wonderful.

Anyone who owns a Breguet and actually wears it- it very privileged indeed. My brother was given a Patek Philippe for his confirmation aged 16- in 1964 - and sold it to buy an old car in 1966

On a different note, many of the best Swiss watch makers currently are not Swiss at all. Voutilainen is Finnish, Breugel-Forsey British, Parmigiani of Italian descent - but have all chosen Watch Valley region to work in for the Quality Label. Same for Hayek of Breguet.

@Odile: I really admire people who can sell these very expensive luxury goods. Apple's margins must pale compared to the Swiss watchmakers'. I keep in my hand a smartphone, a gadget that's a pinnacle of human mind. Amazing tech - microwave radio links, complex signal encoding, image and sound encodings, color processing for photo, digital camera, sophisticated software architecture with complexity rivaling any other human top complex machinery. Amazing display. Even the way the fonts are rasterized to make them legible fill up volumes of research papers. And all this at a price of a low-end Swiss watch, or less.

All that at the price as a low-end Swiss watch... and nowhere near as beautiful. If cared for a watch will also last 50+ years... how long will your shiny new smartphone last? That's a rhetorical question.

You either have an appreciation for the beauty and complexity of Swiss automatic watches... or you don't.

I agree, I must be somehow arts-blind. But I cat still bite back that the best creative minds are employed as industrial designers by the mass-manufacturers :-) However I don't recall buying a gadget or a car mostly by its look.
There is one area where I pay attention to "the look": I admire a well written piece of computer code :-)

Yacek,

The very expensive luxury watches are not mass produced, they are small run quantities and they sell to an afficionado customer who is willing to pay a premium to have something special, if not unique.

The only special and unique things about a smartphone are the imei, the mix of software, contacts, data etc, and the arrangement of nicks scratches and dings on the case. A feature, or set of features sets one generation of smartphones apart from another, but that is generational for the whole production series. There is nothing special or unique about a smartphone.

Don't get me wrong, a smartphone is an impressive piece of technology and the number of highly intelligent and even gifted people who have contributed to its production is huge.

But if you go back in the history of horology to about 1660 when either Hooke, or Huygens invented (or discovered) the balance spring, which was the breakthrough that made a timepiece portable, and follow the progress from Tompion through to Daniels, and consider that the vast majority of horologists which moved the technology forward were for the most part working without what we would call a scientific world view, or even a reasonable fast and efficient way to communicate with each other, having contact to only a few similar minds, then you can hardly come away with a view of their endeavours which regards them as anything other than a pinnacle of the achievements of the human mind. Most of them didn't just develop the idea of some feature, but rather the whole technology, mathematics, measurement, tooling, and methods, and the generally did this on their own.

I admit, I am a fan. I collect and used to repair English fusee pocket watches from the 1800s. These were the mass produced high tech of their day. Amongst other things they include a chain which connects the spring barrel to the fusee which as a pair compensate for the fact that a spring delivers less force as it winds down. This chain is roughly speaking 10cm long, 1mm wide, and about 0.6mm thick. It was assembled by hand by a chain maker who used steel of the best quality and hardened parts with a furnace he had made himself using chemistry which included soot, coal dust, blood and dust made from animal hoofs. The construction of the chain is basically the same as a bicycle chain today, just without the roller barrels. The chain is just one of 80-120 parts in this mechanism.

When I open any of these watches, and see the construction and engraving and precision of these devices I am impressed. In the back of my head I hear a chorus of skilled craftsmen who have all been dead for at least 100 years saying "Fecit. I am skilled in the art.". Perhaps I am anachronistic, or easily impressed. Lets talk in 200 years and see how many smartphones still work. Let's not even demand that they work, we'll just judge them as devices by if one can make them run again them a workshop that will fit on top of a normal sized desk.

Smartphones are impressive in one way, timepieces in another completely different one.

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There is just no comparison - I grew up with watch makers, in the old watch making farming valleys of the Jura- the skills and artisan work, including guillochage and automation, is just breathtaking.

Richdog, great post- but many of the best watches are not automatic.

Did anyone watch the programme.

On 5th of November, a newly refurbished Museum in a magnificent 18th house in the village of Môtiers (of Maison de l'Absinthe fame- 2 doors up - so visiting both will be perfect- then Mauler 'Champagne' - with train station 2 mins away) - totally dedicated to artisan peasant watch-makers- like early Breguet and his step-father Tatet. Much to cold and too much snow to farm here in the winter months- but the light is so bright in the upper valleys of the Jura- so farmers became watch-makers in winter time- and their wives made lace.

Anyone interested in visiting and need more info can get in touch by pm.

I think that's a matter of perspective... personally I cannot appreciate a digital or quartz watch in anything approaching the same way as an automatic timepiece containing a complex movement, as that to me represents true craftsmanship.

I did. How could I not?

If you haven't heard of it, "A Grand Complication: The Race to Build the World's Most Legendary Watch." tells the story of J.W. Packard and H. Graves jr. competing with each other to have the most complicated watch ever constructed. A very enjoyable read,

Yacek,

I know the beauty of code. Imagine being able to see that beauty in a moving part while it is actually doing what it does in realtime... no compiler, memory map, or block level diagram: just the thing, as thing, doing its thing.

Watch this and deny that it is cool as hell:

Just get it insured. Costs 1/1000th of the value of the watch per annum with a 10% excess and don't worry about it. I've worn a Rolex Daytona in far more dodgy places than you are likely to go on business in the U.K. No issues and can relax because I know it's never going to be the end of the world if something happens to it. Also covers it for other eventualities.