The Watchman

As Lord Bassington-Bassington finds himself wearing three-piece suits (or odd vests) more often, it was inevitable that His Lordship would develop a taste for pocket watches. For a vest without a pocket watch simply looks a bit off, like a jacket without a pocket hankie or a shirt without neckwear.

The tipping point seems to have come from watching Mr. B Gentleman Rhymer's latest videogramme, where the good chap-hopper displays some impressively menacing chain acrobatics.

Lord Bassington-Bassington currently owns two pocket watches. One, being from 1925 is a bit of an antique, while the other is of more recent manufacture (but still mechanical and thereby reassuringly non-modern). While His Lordship, being a long-standing fan of mechanical wristwatches is quite used to nice rituals such as winding one’s watch in the morning, the watch chains provides a variety of stylistic (and practical) pitfalls.

Luckily, His Lordship has had the assistance of his friend and Conservative fashion icon Mr. Rosenberg, a seasoned pocket watch wearer, who kindly sent some snapshots to demonstrate the proper deployment of watch chains. So Lord Bassington-Bassington thought it only appropriate to share the pictures with the readers of the Chronicles.

Lord Bassington-Bassington would like to apologise for the title of this post, but His Lordship is a bit excited about Fields of the Nephilim's upcoming tour.

A solemn promise

Let's face it, Lord Bassington-Bassington tends to be a bit aquisitive. It's all part of being a Basset hound, a breed that, after all, was created to track down interesting things. So it is tempting to see His Lordship's passion for vinyl as part of his canine nature.

But when Lord Bassington-Bassington realized, mid-January, that he had spent 200 Euros on records since New Year's, and on records by Sturmpercht alone, some measures had to be taken. So in an attempt to go "cold turkey", His Lordship made the solemn promise to not spend more money on records for a while. And it did indeed last for a while. A short while anyway. Try a week or two.

For on a trip to the Italian capital, where Lord Bassington-Bassington's beloved Mullah was based while working on his upcoming book about political extremism, His Lordship couldn't resist purchasing some musical souvenirs from Rome's many fine record shops. But that was an exception, and the promise has now been renewed.

So, ladies, gentlemen, here are the last records His Lordship will purchase until Easter. Cross heart, hope to die etc.

Luckily Easter comes early this year...