Designer watch: ciao baby

You're standing in the Tube on the way to work. No-one looks like they've seen a blue sky or breathed fresh air for weeks. Joe Average beside you reaches for the strap, revealing a chunky watch the size of a dinner plate bristling with buttons. You look at him again and see the real man within - no mere desk jockey, but a rugged, outward-bound hero who spends weekends thrashing around rivers in canoes and being kind to donkeys on mountain tops.

Well, that's what he'd like you to think. Waterproof to a depth of 17 miles, it probably rarely encounters anything more demanding than a bit of wayward shampoo. Worse still, the chunky watch is in reality just a gaudy knick-knack, an armour-plated bracelet for people who are proud to say they never wear jewellery. And if it's not a fake, but yer genuine Rolex or Tag, you can bet your gold fillings that the chunky watch is just the smallest weapon of the urban warrior's armoury: there's the 4x4, the mountain bike, the sailing anorak... Liberate your wrist and bin the chunky watch - if you need to know the time, you're probably late already.