Double-barrelled

By: Kjell Eriksson

To go outside the door without a watch on your wrist is like leaving home and forgetting to put your trousers on. It has admittedly happened to me, but we will have to take that up another time, because right now I would like to air my so-called first-world problem when it comes to precisely the watch on the wrist.

I am a time optimist. These days I warn everyone I am going to meet at a meeting that the first thing they do should not be to call Missing People, but instead simply wait a little if I do not turn up on time. That is why the watch is so important to me. It has to sit there on the wrist, so that I can see how late I am. But it is also something that I think is good looking. That is why I want a good looking watch.

What is good looking varies a great deal, but if I get to decide then I like classic brown substantial leather straps, that carry a big watch, which may well be round and bombastic and have big numerals. Casio plastic also works fine, preferably one of those big G-shocks with an altimeter, even though I have no plans to climb Mount Everest but mostly ride escalators in central Stockholm. But then I am also crazy about gadgets and things that are new and modern. That is why I have tried a whole lot of different so-called smart watches.

Pippi Longstocking had different colours on her stockings, so it should surely be possible for it to become trendy to wear two watches, one on each arm. Who wants to start?

The one I have taken to purely in terms of function is the Apple Watch. It is very good to be able to answer the phone on your wrist, however strange it may sound (which it also does when mum shouts that she loves me from somewhere inside the jacket cuff). It is also very good when you want to sneak a read of a text message at a meeting, or when you want to win a music quiz and therefore use the Shazam app.

So far, very good, but oh how ugly it is. Yes, it is, because it will never be like a classic watch, one like grandfather had. Is it so bad that intelligence and looks do not go hand in hand? Is that why well-trained photo models are stupid, and those of us who are fat and ugly are intellectual and smart? The smart watch can do a whole lot of things but is ugly. A beautiful Rolex can do nothing, apart from saying what time it is, but is beautiful and irresistible.

The smart watch, usually square and leaving an empty dark surface on the arm (even though Apple is now boasting about some kind of always-on-display, which I have not yet had time to test). Apple is of course trying, with colourful straps and Mickey Mouse. They also offer digital dials that unfortunately mostly resemble Chinese chopsticks playing pick-up sticks with themselves, so that you have no idea what time it is. Why are there no Rolex cases, Certina diamonds to stick on, or Casio underpants that you can pull onto your smart watch? How could it turn out like this? The watch on the arm does after all have a long tradition, of outliving great-great-great-grandfather in both looks and function, while an Apple Series no. 4 already after a couple of months collapses in a Lithium-Ion deficiency collapse.

Oh well, I do not want to whine, but think that I had better come up with something constructive. Vary it, you are thinking. No I say, because once you have got used to changing track, reading text messages and getting notifications on your watch you go nuts the day you do not have these functions around your wrist. The solution must therefore be that we start using both of our wrists. On the one we have the smart watch and then it can carry on looking just as dull as the County Council’s plastic band that is used to tag half-dead patients. On the other wrist there we have movement no. 1, Grandfather’s Rolex, or the 80s Casion.

Pippi Longstocking had different colours on her stockings, so it should surely be possible for it to become trendy to wear two watches, one on each arm. Who wants to start?

Kjell Eriksson, who apart from being a time optimist is a radio man, TV personality, blogger and author. Among other things he has appeared regularly on Vakna med The Voice, Pippirull, Gomorron Sverige on SVT and been a presenter on Morgonpasset in P3.