For decades now I have known, as an article of faith, that real men don’t wear jewellery. But recently, on the road to Damascus (well, Bond Street actually) I realised that I was stupid and wrong and pig-headed. It all happened when I found myself passing the Patek Philippe emporium. I looked in the window and saw something which made me vibrate at a very high frequency. To the other passers-by this must have looked like just another boring old wristwatch. But to me it was the stuff of dreams.

 

What had caused this unscheduled stop was a simple, small, silver-coloured (platinum) watch with a plain dial consisting of black numbers on a white background. The only oddity about this watch was that the crown (or winder as most of us would call it) had a small button protruding from it. I was looking at one of the rarest and most desirable watches made on this planet today. It is called a Patek 5959 and consists of a rattrapante chronograph, which means it can time two events simultaneously. Unlike most of today’s fashionable chronographs, which are big enough to be seen from Mars and heavy enough to ballast a yacht, the 5959 is so small and so discreet it could easily be worn by an undernourished undertaker.

 

As I stood there trying not to salivate, I realised I was looking at the most exquisitely perfect example of male jewellery. You can keep your signet rings, your cufflinks and your tiepins. I’ll just wear the watch of my dreams. To the rest of the world it will look like a stainless steel nothing. They’ll never know it cost me a quarter of a million pounds.