Limp wrist action

I have a secret collection. My wife knows about it, but I doubt many, if any, of my friends have noticed. It’s nothing pervy or offensive, but I am partial to collecting the odd watch or three. Lynn collects clocks, and has a noisy, rather obnoxious cuckoo clock which stutters the hours and half-hours whilst ticking somewhat inefficiently. The last time we did a count, she had 58 clocks, including a caseful of miniatures and a clock made of industrial tools bolted together.

I only have eight watches, which admittedly, is pretty pesky for someone who calls themselves a collector. An automatic, a conventional windup, an extremely ugly LCD, which is my most worn watch due to its indestructibility, and several analogue quartz watches. I’m not much taken with fashion or price (one of my favourite, sadly deceased watches was a purple dialled baby I bought in Spandau Market, Berlin, last year. That only lasted 3 months, but it looked fantastic – cost was 5 Euro).

I had been looking for an LED watch – one of those watches whose numbers glows ruby-red when a button is pressed. These are relics of the seventies and I fondly remember my “BIONIC MAN” WITH SIX FUNCTIONS (!!) LED watch. Presumably the Far Eastern licensee was not wealthy enough to pay for proper Six Million Dollar Man branding or the watches they made were too crap for the holder to associate themselves with the manufacturer. It was cheap and generic, and didn’t last long. But this toy fascinated my eight-year-old self. About a year ago I started to look for one which used the same time delivery technology as my BIONIC wonder. There seemed to be plenty of old ones around for sale, including some wonderful Pulsars, but to be honest

1) they were bloody pricey for an old watch, and more importantly

2) I like to wear my watches and the technology was pretty flaky in the 70s. I wasn’t sure how well any item I bought would stand up to the rigour of actually being worn. After realising I’d be out of pocket, I gave up and forgot about it until a few weeks ago.

Then I found a site which sold watches with that same 70s design, but which were new and contained updated 00s LED technology and power management (the 70s originals ate batteries like sharks eat fish). And here it is on my rather hairy arm. If you are interested, some better pictures can been at www.led-watch.com. You can buy one as well – mine is the TX5.