TERRIBLE SAUSAGES GREAT WATCHES

Professional watch journalists are some of the most curmudgeonly bastards on the planet. With each watch launch – following our business-class round-trip, suite-with-a-view invitations to various junkets in the most exotic locales on Earth – we gush effusive praise to the face of varying brand owners, CEOs, technical directors and watch designers. But behind closed doors, watch journalists love nothing more than to lambast, poo-poo and heap a steaming pile of malignment on the very horological finery we were praising 10 seconds ago.

So, how can you gauge when a watch journalist is actually genuine in his praise? Well, it’s simple. Because your watch journalist’s irascibility is exceeded by only one other quality – and that is his cheapness. And, quite honestly, who can blame him? I mean, here you have some journalism student that inadvertently stumbled into the surreal world of horology and the deeper down the rabbit hole he gets, the more he forgets that the $40,000 watch that you’ve just explained to him is almost incomprehensibly good value for a 4 Hz, COSC-certified tourbillon, actually costs more than his annual salary – by a good measure.

And this constant contact with the most resplendent watches, combined with the underlying reality that he