Watch this space

I mentioned in my previous post, that my Beloved and I exchanged gifts on our 40th anniversary.
I gave her a large (and much too expensive) Ruby and Diamond gold ring.

My beloved (note the lower case beloved in this case) gave me a watch.

I like watches, I appreciate watches, it's the only form of jewelry (apart from a wedding ring) that I think appropriate for a bloke.

I can vividly remember the first time I bought a watch of my own. Before then, I wore (as most teenagers of my generation did) hand me downs and second hand wrist watches.
My only watch had been my late Grandfather's, and I loved it.  But it was very old fashioned.
So with me now in a job, I saved up, and bought my very own watch.
It was a Seiko Quartz Chronograph, in stainless steel, with a bright blue face, and easy to read. It had a date indicator, and even an alarm.

It was lovely. The battery needed to be changed every year, and I found out that very few jewelers had the proper tool to open it up, and they caused a lot of scratches all over the back.  They also buggered up the water seal, so it was just water resistant now, not waterproof as before.

 

 I bought quite a few similar watches over the years, always from Seiko. 

Then I had a revelation.  While at University, working on my MSc in Applied Computing, we did a unit on heuristics.  This is the study of the interface between man and machine.  We were working towards computer control interfaces, but we started off with a study of watch faces.  Watch faces with actual numbers on them were much easier to read.  WHY hadn't I thought of this before?

My next Seiko watch applied these principles, and it was also a Kinetic, which had the accuracy of a quartz, but no need for batteries.  It had a very easy to read face, and a date and day display.

It was a lovely watch, very reliable, and with the numerical face, easy to read, especially as my eyes weren't quite what they were with all the damned ageing process.

Now we come to the watch my beloved bought me for our anniversary.

It was a Skagen.  It used a battery.  It could only be adjusted when interlinked using wireless to my tablet computer. It didn't have a date or day display.   It didn't even have a second hand.

And now for the best bit.

It didn't have a numerical watch face, it had a black watch face, black metal bits to indicate the hours, and black hands. It was almost impossible to see the bloody time.  It did look cool, just useless.

AND the thing had a fitbit-like tracker, checking calorific intake, sleep patters and steps taken.  I sleep like a baby, have my diet under firm control, and my main exercise is swimming.  Oh, did I mention the new watch isn't waterproof.

 How do I tell her her gift to me is crap?