Vettel seizes pole in Bahrain desert, Raikkonen P2 to secure Ferrari front row lockout; Bottas salvages P3 on grid for Mercedes but Hamilton relegated to P9 after gearbox penalty
Ferrari again showed that they have the pace to challenge and perhaps dethrone Mercedes in 2018, at least based on qualifying results at the dusty desert Bahrain International Circuit on Saturday. The Scuderia’s ace, Sebastian Vettel, laid down a track record 1:27.958 lap to secure the pole for Sunday’s Grand Prix, a solid .143 in front of his stablemate, Kimi Raikkonen. That secured a Ferrari front row lockout, as Mercedes’ second driver, Valtteri Bottas, could set a lap no better than third fastest. To make matters worse for the Silver Arrows, while Lewis Hamilton was not only off the pace and qualified behind Bottas and his main rivals in P4 the English current World Champion also faces a 5-spot gearbox penalty and will have to start from back in P9 on the grid. At least in the very early going this year the racing gods seem to be favoring Ferrari’s challenge to the previously unmatched might of Mercedes.
Daniel Ricciardo was fifth fastest but his headstrong teammate Max Verstappen crashed out in Q1, allegedly after a “horsepower spike” sent his car careering off track and into a barrier. Vertapeppen will have to fight his way through the back of the pack, which should at least make for some exciting racing for the young Dutchman as he scrambles to secure precious points for team Red Bull. Perhaps most impressive of all qualifying efforts, Pierre Gasly piloted his previously woeful Honda-powered Toro Rosso all the way up to the sixth fastest time, out performing Haas, Renault and Force India in the process. With his teammate Brendan Hartley qualifying just outside of Q3 in P11 it could be that Honda power is finally coming good a year after the McLaren divorce. Making matters more awkward for McLaren neither of their Renault-powered chassis were able to get through to Q3, with Fernando Alonso & Stoffel Vandoorne mired back in P13 and P14 respectively.
Rounding out the Top 10 in quali, Kevin Magnussen made it to P7 for improving Haas a week after their twin pit disasters led to heartbreak in Australia; Nico Hulkenberg was P8 and Carlos Sainz was P10 for the Renault factory team; and Esteban Ococn was the sole Force India to make it into Q3 at P9. Once formidable Williams look to be in deep trouble as they were essentially as slow as the pitiful Saubers, with Lance Stroll having the dubious distinction of setting the worst time of the day.
Vettel and Ferrari score opportunistic win in Round 1, Hamilton a disappointed P2 for Mercedes; Raikkonen P3
For the second year in a row Ferrari and their ace driver Sebastian Vettel used clever strategy — plus a little luck this time — to score an upset over favored Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes. Despite qualifying third fastest behind pole-sitter Hamilton and Scuderia stablemate Kimi Raikkonen, Vettel ran a longer stint on his opening set of Super Soft Pirelli tires than his nearest competitors. Thus while Raikkonen pitted on Lap 19 and Hamilton on Lap 20, Vettel gambled and stayed out until Lap 26, where he was able to take advantage of a well-timed Safety Car for Romain Grosjean & Kevin Magnussen’s disabled Haas cars, which inexplicably left the pits with unsecured wheels. Whether by calculation, blind luck or a combination of the two that meant that Vettel could dive to the pits while the field had to slow and close up behind the Safety Car, erasing the impact of the lost to the dreaded pit lane delta and, in fact, emerge just ahead of Hamilton upon reentry to the circuit. Also, due to a quirk in the rules, Vettel was able to gun his Ferrari out of the short pit lane blend line while Hamilton had to run the slower set pace, thereby giving the German 4-time world champion a crucial advantage. It was one Vettel and Ferrari would not relinquish as, despite his best efforts, Hamilton could never get his car to work well enough or keep his engine cool enough in Vettel’s aero wake to make an overtaking move.
After Vettel’s somewhat fluky strategic victory F1 may need to look at their pit stop/Safety Car rules anew because there seems to be a net gain for a car that dives for the pits under full course yellow as opposed to most other forms of motorsport, where the pits generally stay closed after a safety car is deployed for at least a set number of laps. That negates the advantage of a car entering the pits directly after yellow, though of course it’s fair play if the team is lucky enough to call their driver in just before the full course yellow is thrown.
Nevertheless, Ferrari takes the season opening victory just as they did last year when their strikingly similar long-run tire strategy with Vettel also paid off with a win. Hamilton was left to console himself with a somewhat hard luck P2 and the knowledge that his Mercedes did have superior pace to the Ferraris in both qualifying and when running out front. Once again things look to be shaping up as a contest between Vettel and Hamilton to see who can secure the Championship, what would be the fifth for either very accomplished ace. Mighty Mercedes must surely be hoping that once again they prevail in the long run, as they have the previous four seasons. However they will need more from their second driver, Valtteri Bottas, who binned his car in qualifying, started from 15th and could only manage to claw his way back to P8 at the checkered flag.
Raikkonen also got burned by the Safety Car but was able to hold off the hard charging Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo for the last spot on the podium at P3, making it a very good day for Ferrari as a team. The Aussie native Ricciardo raced very well after starting from a penalty-hampered eighth spot on the grid to come home a competitive P4 in front of his adoring home fans, a very hopeful sign of improvement for the team’s upgraded engine. However, Ricciardo’s Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen, had a scrappy race, overcooking his tires in pursuit of the Haas of Kevin Magnusson, who had passed him with a fine move at the start, and even losing a passel of positions by spinning out at one point. Young Max was able to recover and take advantage of a host of retirements to finish in P6 but the 20-year-old Dutch wunderkind had better begin showing more maturity and poise in this his fifth year in Formula 1 if he is ever going to start realizing his undoubted potential as a threat for consistent podiums.
McLaren made a solid statement that this year will be different than their desultory last three campaigns. Flashing their new Renault power plant in anger for the first time, Fernando Alonso drove like the two-time champion he is for a P5 finish, while Stoffel Vandoorne added to the valuable points haul with a solid P9. The Renault factory team also had an excellent day, with veteran Nico Hulkenberg taking a solid P6 and Spaniard Carlos Sainz fighting off an upset stomach to grab that last point in P10.
Missing out on any glory were Force India, which looks to have taken a step backwards against their closest mid-field rivals, and Williams, which simply looks lost and could potentially be in for an awful season. Sauber was again nowhere despite their Ferrari engines and Toro Rosso looked awful after their switch to Honda (under)-power, both slow and unreliable. Most depressing of all here in Round 1 was the double DNF for Haas. Despite showing pace that should have found Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean in the points, the team was undone done by twin catastrophic pit stops that saw both cars released with one improperly attached wheel each. Ironically it was Ferrari-powered Haas’s fatal blunder that enabled Vettel and the factory team to win the opening round of the 2018 season.
The next race is in two weeks time and half way around the world in Bahrain. Hope to see you the to find out if Vettel and Ferrari’s good luck continues or Hamilton and Mercedes can get back on the top step!
The long winter break is finally over and Formula 1 is back for its new season and starting once again from the Albert Park street circuit in Melbourne, Australia. There is good news and bad news for the new cars this year. The good news is that the 2018 spec s the fastest yet of the new V6 turbo era. The bad news is that the addition of the driver-protecting halo device has made the cars not only ugly but also ruining the on-car camera perspective. Still I suppose if the Halo prevents another driver head injury like the one that lead to the death of Jules Bianchi at Suzuka in 2016 then it will be worth the rather awful aesthetics. On the other hand I’m not quite sure I see how the Halo will stop small debris from striking a driver’s helmet through the open spaces, as happened to Felipe Massa when a spring hit him at 200mph at the Hungaroring in 2009. But caveats aside let’s find out what happened on the first day of real racing in anger as the 2018 F1 field competed for the pole in Saturday Qualifying in Melbourne!
Hamilton & Mercedes still the ones beat after blistering season debut pole; Raikkonen outguns favored Ferrari teammate Vettel, P2 to P3; Bottas crashes out of Q3
In Formula 1 the more things change the more they stay the same apparently. On the first qualifying of the 2018 season Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, the reigning World Champion, thrashed his Silver Arrow around Albert Park in Melbourne setting a time that no others could match. The result was Hamilton fifth consecutive and seventh career pole in Australia. After all the hype in testing about Ferrari’s potential for dominance when it came down to a mano-a-mano between manufactures Mercedes retained the edge that has propelled them to the last 4 consecutive Constructors’ Titles. Ferrari does appear to have the pace over the rest of the field and Kimi Raikkonen utilized his SF71H chassis the best on Saturday, setting a quick time about 7 tenths in arrears of Hamilton but good enough for P2 and .01 faster than his more heralded teammate, Sebastian Vettel, who slots in at P3 on the grid.
All was not completely rosy for mighty Mercedes, however, as their second driver, Valtteri Bottas, continued to have bad luck Down Under. Hamilton’s Finnish wingman had a lurid, spinning crash when he dropped his tires off track and onto the slippery grass shortly after starting his first hot lap in Q3. His Silver Arrow appeared badly damaged and no doubt Bottas will be starting from the pit come Sunday.
Red Bull once again did not have the sheer pace of the top two teams, which has to be a disappointment for anyone hoping they had made an engine breakthrough over the winter and were ready to seriously threaten Mercedes or Ferrari. Wunderkind Max Verstappen qualified P4 and Aussie Daniel Ricciardo earned P5 but will be penalized 3 positions on the grid at his home Grand Prix for a dubious speeding-under-red-flag penalty in Friday practice. On the flip side American team Haas showed definite improvement to their Ferrari powered chassis and threw down an early claim to be “best of the rest” with Kevin Magnusson qualifying in P6 and Romain Grosjean in P7. That meant, somewhat surprisingly, that both Renault factory drivers will start behind the upstart Haas cars, with Nico Hulkenberg in P8 and Carlos Sainz in P9. The steadily improving Haas and Renault performance could bode ill for last year’s 4th place team, perennial overachiever Force India. On this first qualifying day, at least, they were nowhere on pace, with both their talented drivers out in Q2. Sergio Perez could do no better than P13 while young Esteban Ocon was way back in P15. Newly Renault-powered McLaren did better than Force India as well, if not quite good enough to dent the Top 10 starting grid — international superstar Fernando Alonso was P11 and his Belgian teammate Stoffel Vandoorne was right behind in P12.
Tomorrow’s race airs live early this Sunday at 1AM on ESPN2. ABC and the ESPN family of network are F1’s new broadcast partner in the States in partnership with Sky Sports and ESPN will simply utilize the Sky feed complete with their lead British announcing team of David Croft and former racer Martin Brundle. After so many years of David Hobbs and Steve Matchett bringing us F1 this will undoubtedly take some getting used to, though what I heard on Saturday was quite good in its own way.
March Madness for great collectible watches continues with this awesome IWC Flieger UTC dual timezone beauty. UTC stands for Universal Time Coordiated (why, its right there in the dial!), the successor to GMT time as the standard for pilots. So it only makes sense that this late 1990s addition to IWCs fabled Flieger line features a mega cool UTC 24-hour readout right there on the dial.
See, you set up the watch so that both the 12-hour hands and 24-hour disc are in sync. Then when you travel this cool timepiece lets you set the hour hand independently either forwards or backwards via the screw down crown. But your hometime stays constant. A pretty darn cool way to design a GMT watch!
Not only that but the beautiful stainless steel case is built like a tank. It’s also sized like a jumbo Mark XI at an ultra-wearable 39mm, perfectly proportioned in my opinion. Plus this early reference 3251 still features its classic black and white “Mark”-style dial with mixed Tritium along with Luminova luminous for that classic aviator toolwatch look. Better yet all this wristwatch engineering and functionality represents terrific value for money in today’s bananas watch world. So strap it on and set course for distant lands. Day or night, this Flieger UTC could be the only travel watch you need in any hemisphere!
Ralph Lauren’s Polo is an old warhorse that still performs like a thoroughbred in its prime. Created way back in 1978, Polo escaped the trap that many of the other succeeding powerhouse Chypres like Antaeus, Salvador Dali and de la Renta’s Pour Loui fell into, that of a general lack of versatility due to their heavily nocturnal and overtly animalic natures, making them taboo in today’s more aromatically PC culture. No, Polo EDT is a cologne you can still spritz on happily in the morning after a shower despite its uhr-leathey nature. It is so wonderfully blended that the green notes easily balance out its more foreboding macho aspects, which to this nose simply summon up the active pleasures of the outdoors and the enjoyable time spent relaxing afterwards.
True there is nothing modern about Polo Green and the complaints about its old-mannish qualities are legion. But I have come to firmly believe as I’ve explored more and more men’s fragrances that trying a cologne once will never give you the full picture about whether it’s really going to work for you. You’ve got to revisit it even if you’re initially turned off and preferably let the juice in the bottle aerate after first use and then begin to macerate (I’ve come to also feel this is absolutely pivotal but more on that later). Much like a song you hear for the first time that does nothing for you but later becomes one of your favorites after repeat listenings, cologne can work its magic through repetition and familiarization. Such is the case with the initially intimidating Polo.
Polo definitely goes on strong at first spray with a veritable blast of soapy and astringent green notes like artemisia, juniper and pine, leavened by a very pleasantly smooth and slightly sweet lavender, all underpinned by what smells to me like a smoky, birch tar-like note. This last note is a harbinger of the heart of Polo, where the slightly harsh but exuberant green top notes give way to a classic patchouli-oakmoss-vetiver trinity that is blended into something warm and ultra-masculine but not too over the top. The base dries down into a rich tobacco-leather with a hint of woods and incense, one of the best in the game if not quite as on the nose as Bel Ami’s perfect imitation of leather. It’s comforting and yet stimulating, like pipe smoke in a leather lined study, as others have said before me (sometimes something’s a cliche because it’s true). Longevity is more than solid at around 8 hours and the ingredients in the current version still smell natural and very well blended, justifying the relatively steep price (about $85 retail for 4 oz, less on such reseller sights as Amazon and Fragrancenet).
It all boils down to an unimpeachably classic masculine fragrance, albeit definitely one from the old school (big props to its creator and longtime RL collaborator, Carlos Benaim). There is nothing unisex about Polo with zero aquatic notes and barely any sweetness — you can explore the endless list of Polo flankers for those effects — which is probably why so many young guys run screaming from it. I also admit to being nonplussed when I first tried it. It is definitely less initially user-friendly than the old school Fougères that I cut my teeth on like Paco Rabanne, Tsar and Lauder for Men. But the rewards are no less great than that classic trio and it is considerably more suited to everyday use than its near contemporaries on the Chypre scale like Aramis, Giorgio of Beverly Hills or Fahrenheit. So definitely a try before you buy — on skin not a paper strip — and preferably try several times over time to see if you don’t wind up loving it. That’s what happened to me and now I wear it at least once a week so long as there’s a hint of cool in the weather. If you’re going on a road trip, particularly somewhere rustic in the day with something country-sophisticated in the evening like a well turned out lodge, original Polo might end up being the only cologne you need to pack in your duffel.
The recent run of remarkable vintage Omegas continues into March with this stunning and ultra-funky 1969 Jumbo Constellation Day-Date. Featuring a large rectangular cushion style case and integrated bracelet that meets the case precisely at its widest point, this Connie is something of a precursor to other famous avant-garde integrated bracelet watches like the Gerald Genta-designed AP Royal Oak and Patek Nautilus. As a major design contributor for many Omega Constellations during the late 1950s and throughout 1960s who knows if there isn’t some Genta DNA in this model, as well?
Under that neo-futurist body beats the excellent caliber 751, arguably the last of Omega’s great in-house movements until the modern era. It was fully serviced in 2015 and features not only day and date complications but also a very cool quickest date function by repeatedly pulling the crown out to its second position. So once you set the day by full 24-hour revolutions of the hands it’s a piece of cake to match up the date, presto chango.
Its beautiful horizontally brushed Near Mint original dial changes tone in different light from pewter to bright silver and the watch as a whole is in Excellent vintage condition, showing little if any polish and displaying sharp chamfers. If you want to talk cheap thrills in the overheated vintage watch world this model of Connie has got be high up on the list. Space age cool combines with a fantastic analog heart to make for a premium piece that you’re not likely to see on anyone else’s wrist. Dig that!
It’s hard to believe there hasn’t been a comprehensive Eric Clapton biographical documentary until now. The legendary British guitarist has been a major part of the Rock firmament for well over 50 years yet we had to wait until 2017 before we got a full cinematic retrospective of Clapton’s rather amazing life and career. Thankfully, Lili Fini Zanuck’s Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars does its mythical subject justice, all the more so by humanizing the diffident guitar genius by delving into his troubled childhood and deep emotional troughs along with chronicling Slowhand’s blazing musical achievements.
Clocking in at a fairly long 2 hours, 13 minutes, Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars is definitely a conventional documentary and nothing groundbreaking in and of itself, tracing Clapton’s life in chronological fashion from his middle class upbringing in postwar Ripley, England, through his rise to superstardom and to the modern day. Thankfully, its exhaustive nature is much more illuminating than tedious, at least to a lifelong fan like myself. Clapton has always been a somewhat elusive character, both omnipresent in Rock culture and yet a bit opaque with a tendency to recede for long periods of time. Life in 12 Bars does an excellent job of filling in the major mysteries of his rather dramatic life.
Chief among them is the fact that Clapton found out at around age 9 that the woman he thought was his mother was actually his grandmother and that his real mother had abandoned him and fled to Canada after a brief war time fling led to his conception. This primal abandonment and subsequent rejection by his biological mother during his youth and adolescence — she had started an entirely new family in the following years — led to profound psychological scars, as well as intimacy issues. As so often is the case with a genius, though, this trauma also led to amazing artistic breakthroughs. After becoming obsessed with American Blues and R&B as a teenager, young Eric took to the guitar like a fish to water.
After flirting with graphic art at college, Clapton joined his first real band in 1962 at the age of 17. By 1963 he was in the Yardbirds as they starting their amazing run of Blues-inflected British pop, becoming one of the stalwarts of the British Invasion and one of its key innovators. Clapton left the Yardbirds in ’65 when he felt they were straying too far from their Blues roots for his liking, joining the more traditionalist John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. While fruitful for Clapton’s evolution as a modern Blues guitar master, the relationship was short-lived and by late 1966 Clapton had teamed up with drummer Ginger Baker and bassist/voclaist Jack Bruce to form the ultimate power trio, Cream.
Cream, one of the earliest so-called “supergroups,” slowly built into a monstrously successful act, particularly once they crossed the Atlantic and began a string of mythical live shows in New York, San Francisco and across the United States. Clapton was also inspired by the emergence of another guitar legend upon the scene, Jimi Hendrix, perhaps the only true rival to Clapton in terms of pure technique (with apologies to Jimmy Page). This period was undoubtedly the high point of Clapton’s 1960s career, with both critical accolades and commercial success through his highly influential work as part of Cream, which for good or ill laid the groundwork for both Heavy Metal and the hard-edged Blooze music to come in the early 70s by bands like Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, Black Sabbath, et al.
However, all was not well in the band despite their massive success. Relentless touring and the deteriorating toxic relationship between Bruce and Baker led to a permanent rupture, with the band releasing their final album, the aptly named Goodbye, in 1970. After that, Clapton was off to the short-lived Blind Faith (“Cant Find My Way Home”), Delaney and Bonnie and Friends (“Let It Rain,” “After Midnight”) and as a super session man on all-time classics like George Harrison’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” John Lennon’s “Cold Turkey” and “Go Back Home” by Stephen Stills, among many others.
The next key development for Clapton was the formation of Derek and the Dominos. The material for for their first album came largely from Clapton’s obsessive infatuation with George Harrison’s wife, Pattie Boyd. Despite the fact that Harrison was probably Clapton’s closest friend he pursued Boyd and essentially recorded Layla and Other Love Songs in an attempt to woo her away from the quiet Beatle. The title track and “Bellbottom Blues” were particularly raw expressions of unrequited love, as well as stone classics, and the whole double album is a remarkable artistic achievement that also featured key contributions from Duane Allman, a vital catalyst after Clapton and the Dominos suffered major creative blocks.
Bizarrely, despite its undeniable greatness the album failed in America due to the confusing pseudonym chosen for the band. Even more ominously, Derek and the Dominos proved to be a final zenith for the seemingly unstoppable Clapton for some time, as tragic events conspired to send him into a drug-fueled tailspin. First came the death of his guitar rival/soulmate Hendrix in September, 1970, shortly after the band had recorded a version of “Little Wing” as a tribute. By October, 1971 Duane Allman was also dead in a motorcycle accident (this fact is inexcplicably left out of 12 Bars). Perhaps worst of all, despite the passion of Layla, Pattie Boyd chose to remain with Harrison for the time being, adding to Clapton’s sense of hopeless desperation. After leading from the ramparts of the 1960s Rock revolution with ever-increasing influence, popularity and creative innovation, Clapton would drop out and spend the first several years of the 1970s as a heroin-addled hermit.
Of course, this is really only the first part of both the documentary and Clapton’s life story, albeit the most important and dynamic section of the film. 12 Bars goes on to recount Clapton’s struggles with both heroin and alcohol, his epically erratic comeback to live performance, his eventual rather hollow winning of Pattie Boyd as his wife (it didn’t last) and the tragic death of his young son Connor to a fall out the window of a New York skyscraper in 1991. I’m probably in the minority but there are a bit too many rather morbid home movies of his son set to “Tears In Heaven” for my taste after the scope of the loss has already been well established — and with the same images already seen immediately prior. No doubt this absolutely horrible loss was a key event in Clapton’s later life and a major turning point in his sobriety — not to mention the resulting song a massive hit for E.C and a ubiquitous Grammy-winning Unplugged performance. But it still seems like this section is padded out and the tragedy exploited in a somewhat unseemly and facile music video fashion.
Nevertheless, while it has its flaws Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars is a must-view for any serious Clapton fan and really anyone interested in the history of Rock ‘n Roll in general, particularly the lighting-fast developments of the British music scene in the 1960s. Along with the breadth of sorrows that the film lays bare in the man and his Herculean struggles to overcome them, which were only vaguely known by the general public, the documentary also makes clear by sheer accumulation the true scope of Slowhand’s importance. When dwelling on his solo output it has often been fashionable for Rock critics to render a verdict on Clapton’s work as somewhat disappointing, a bit of a Rock underachiever. But that narrow view fails to take into account the fevered vibrancy of his earlier work and the unsustainability of that pace, not to mention the multitude of his collaborations as a sideman and the undeniable quality of much of his later work in the 1970s, 80s, 90s and until the present day, even if what came after The Yardbirds, Cream and Derek and the Dominos was not quite as revelatory.
I think most of all what comes across is just how young Clapton was when he achieved immortality. By the time Layla was released in 1970 Clapton was all of 25 years old. It’s really no surprise then that he had not yet come to terms with his childhood emotional damage and was still somewhat stunted as a person even if he had already achieved world-conquering global stardom. The fact that he survived the perils of fame and his addictions to keep on recording great music and lived to become one of the grand old men of Rock at the current age of 72 is probably also just as remarkable considering the fate of so many of his contemporaries. In fact, Life in 12 Bars leads to one inescapable conclusion through its excellent exploration of a life literally defined by Rock and the Blues: Eric Clapton may not be God but he is somewhat surprisingly, based on his longevity, his collaborators and the overall quality of his output, the most important guitarist in the history of Rock ‘n Roll.
I don’t throw out Mint very often but this dial is that — beautifully aged Tritium and its high impact gray, orange & burgundy exotic Racing layout still having an intensity to the colors that is seldom seen. Featuring a tonneau case with sweeping lines and a fixed Tachymeter scale integrated into the mineral crystal to prevent the dreaded bezel knock off, the Speedy Mark II was an innovative design that showcased Omega’s modernist commitment to diversify their chronograph line above and beyond the tried and true Moonwatch.
This Speedy Mark II is also powered by the famed Lemania-based manual wind caliber 861, the same robust chrono caliber that is found in the Speedmaster Professional Moonwatch from 1969 on. And in fact the movement serial number dates the watch to precisely that year making it one of the earliest Mark IIs around.
Recently serviced and running like a top, with the case exhibiting extremely sharp chamfers and all the original factory finishes, this big chrono makes a pure vintage statement on the wrist while the exceptionally well preserved colors provide uncommon visual punch. Like the Moonwatch, the Speedy Pro Mark II is an iconic chronograph in its own rather daring, avant-garde way. Just strap it on and prepare to fall in love.
And just like that it’s February! Where does the time go? I can’t tell you that but I can tell you how to track it — with this absolutely gorgeous early 1970s Omega Seamaster “TV Case” chronograph featuring the amazing Lemania-derived caliber 1040 and a stunning metallic blue dial.
This fantastic Omega automatic chrono not only tells the time but also has complications for quickest date, constant seconds, 24-hour indicator and full chronograph functions for recording seconds, minutes via the characteristic orange-tipped “jet” center-mounted minute counter and 12-hour totalizer at “6.” This sexy beast also features a sunken dial that has aged to delightful purple-blue surrounded by a fixed Tachymeter scale protected by a mineral crystal, all in a large faceted rectangular case with wonderful sweeping lines that retains its original factory finish.
The TV Case Seamaster chrono is one of the more striking and distinctive designs that Omega came up with in the 1970s following the successes of their tonneau-cased Mark II & Mark III Speedmasters. If you’re looking for retro funk and terrific functionality with a stunning blue dial, you’ve found your watch. And when you look at how the prices of vintage mechanical chronos have skyrocketed in the past few years, the Omega Seamaster TV Case model in steel is a premium piece that still represents excellent value for money. Better pounce before these finally have their day in the sun!
First things first, let me just say that I am not a very big Duran Duran fan. I always found their big hits “Hungry Like the Wolf,” “Girls on Film” and “Rio” sort of overly bombastic and crude with Simon Le Bon’s vocal stylings lacking in nuance and modulation, almost but not quite shout-singing. And the lyrics are, frankly, dumb. If their MTV-fueled success was groundbreaking for the music video era and helped usher in the New Romantic movement here in the States — they were nicknamed the “Fab Five” at one point, for gods’ sakes — well, I have to say I much prefer the music of non-New Romantics like the Cure, The Smiths, Big Country, Echo & The Bunnymen and New Order, to name but a few of their contemporaries. Also there’s just something so time-specific about Duran Duran, from their very pretty ur-80s fashion sense to the Patrick Nagel cover art, that you can practically smell the Drakkar Noir wafting off their videos.
That said you’ve got to give the devil his due. Duran Duran did make extremely catchy singles and once in a while they could come up with a real beauty. Such is the case with the stunning “Come Undone” from 1993, quite late in their heyday.
One of the standout tracks along with “Ordinary World” from the band’s major comeback effort, The Wedding Album, “Come Undone” features gorgeous production, sinuous hooks and sophisticatedly mysterious lyrics. Le Bon’s vocal effort is also much improved 10 years on as he embraces an appealing Bryan Ferry by way of Micheal Hutchence croon. In fact the whole song does resemble one of INXS’s moodier ballads with the angular edges sanded off. Add to that a bevy of typically seductive Duran Duran hooks like a desperately sexy, helium voiced female vocal (“Can’t ever keep from falling apart at the seams”) replying to Le Bon’s darkly charged overtures (“Blow me into cry” indeed) and a well done arty video in an aquarium with crossdressing appeal and you come up with a Duran Duran hit that even a hater like me can love. And play on repeat, for that matter.