We need better communication, not extra rules February 16, 2012 BRITAIN’S comply-or-explain system of corporate governance has come in for some stick in Brussels since the banking crisis. Sometimes dubbed self-regulation, it is seen as unreliable, and a number of senior officials have indicated their preference for codes to be replaced by more prescriptive regulation. Yet the facts tell a different story. Systematic research by [...]
Licensing journalists – it’s just not very British February 16, 2012 OUR national poets understood how much freedom matters. Milton! you should be living at this hour: England has need of you – William Wordsworth sighed at the dawn of the nineteenth century. In the second decade of the twenty-first, when British journalists are rounded up by the police in dawn raids and both a senior [...]
RAPID RESPONSES February 16, 2012 Debt is soaring [Re: The real reasons why the UK is in trouble, Wednesday] Government spending has exceeded income for most years post WWII. There is a cycle which goes from growth, when tax receipts eventually catch up with spending, almost immediately followed by recession, when deficits return. The busts have been getting ever bigger [...]
TANK GOODNESS February 16, 2012 THE war machines which lumbered across the battlefields of World War One might seem odd inspiration for a watch seen as the last word in chic, but that’s supposedly how the Cartier Tank got its name. Louis Cartier, the original genius of wristwatch design, apparently saw some French Renault battle tanks and dreamed up the [...]
GMT WATCHES Time for travellers February 16, 2012 BEING an hour behind the rest of the Continent is probably rather proudly lodged in the British psyche – as is the fact that it’s actually they who are out from us, or rather from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), from where the world is divided into its 24 time zones. For a Brit, the fact [...]
It’s getting haute in here February 16, 2012 THE high-luxury watch world’s favourite device is the tourbillon – the word means “whirlwind” in French, and denotes a mechanism which mounts a watch’s escapement (the vibrating part regulating power from the mainspring) in a constantly rotating cage to counteract the effects of gravity on accuracy. Nowadays everyone and his brother puts these hypnotic gizmos [...]
Baume & Mercier: historic brand back on its game February 16, 2012 FOR a luxury watch brand with a history dating back to 1830, Baume & Mercier has been maintaining a curiously low profile for the past few years. Or rather had been until 2011, during which it had a bit of a break-out year. Suddenly there were interesting, charismatic pieces appearing again in its collection, and [...]
REACH for the SKIES February 16, 2012 THE meaning of value is hard to pin down. You’ve got perceived value versus actual value, for starters, and then the problem that one man’s tripe is another man’s caviar. One of the few things we can all agree on though, is that there is value in usefulness. Usefulness is reassuringly tangible. A car is [...]
The smooth, gliding beauty of Spring Drive February 16, 2012 GENERALLY speaking, for fans of fine watches there is a clear and even line to be drawn between mechanical and electronic watches. The one consists of an intricate system of cogs, gears, wheels and levers transforming power from the wound-up mainspring into regulated timekeeping, and is the product of craftsmanship, skillful engineering and deep tradition. [...]
The pick of the pilot watches February 16, 2012 1. Breguet – Type XXII, £13,300. www.breguet.com 2. Bremont – Solo, £2,550. www.bremont.com 3. Glycine – Airman SST Chronograph, £2,995. www.jurawatches.co.uk 4. Hamilton – Khaki Aviation X-Patrol, £1,350. www.hamiltonwatch.com 5. Bell & Ross – WW1 96 Grand Date, £2,500. www.bellross.com 6. Stowa Flieger with date, €580. www.stowa.de 7. IWC Pilot’s Watch Top Gun Miramar, £9,750. [...]
