As it happens, the oscillator of my Superlative Certified Swiss Chronometer has always exhibited arrhythmia. Over the course of a few days, it will happily gain a couple of minutes but I’ve got used to its idiosyncratic approach to time-telling which for the most part has generally made me slightly more punctual.

Anyway, this isn’t an attempt to deconstruct the rational or irrational behaviour of spending several thousand quid on something that one could spend £5 on and find it does the primary job of telling the time just as well if not better than your average chronometer.

No, this is about the relationship the brand continues to have with you when things go wrong or there is a need for some kind of dialogue. You see, Rolex recommend that the watch is serviced around 5 years mark.  Not that they’ve ever reminded me.  Mine is about 6 years old now but over the Christmas period something inside the stainless steel, expertly crafted one-piece oyster shell of my Explorer II started to vibrate whenever I moved my wrist. And then, just before New Year, the precision-engineered Oyster movement, the ‘height of precision, robustness and guaranteed long term performance’ just kind of….stopped….

So, last weekend I marched into my authorised Rolex agent, expecting staff to jump into action, the watch to be gently but expediently strapped to a watch stretcher, the Rolex helicopter to land  and my watch whisked off for the very best private-care and convalescence before being chauffer driven to my own front door and returned to my wrist in full health a couple of weeks later.

But no. Apparently, I was nonchalently informed, events like this are perfectly usual issues for swiss-engineered superlative chronometers. True or not, the fact that owning the watch might imply I’m a high-octane, adventure fuelled, every second counts kind of guy who relies on their choice of timepiece for accurate split-second, life or death decision-making doesn’t resonate in the quiet corridors and laboratories of Rolex. It would seem there’s no

time like Rolex time. I’ve got to wait between 14 and 16 weeks – yes upto 4 months (or 10,368,000 seconds to be accurate) before I can be repatriated with my son’s heirloom and I’m going to be expected to pay for the pleasure too.

So come on Rolex, if you can’t crank up your servicing mechanisms, surely there is something you could do at this point in the relationship to reaffirm my investment or even better re-ignite my relationship! How about offering a ‘courtesy watch’? Might that not encourage the idea of multiple watch ownership – trialling something a bit sportier or dressier in the interim period?  Oh, and it’s my wife’s 40th birthday just around the corner. But then you didn’t know that did you because you’ve never asked. Tant pis!