Don't worry, it's just clickbait.
What with all the excitement of celebrating forty years of the beloved TAG Heuer Formula 1, I kind of forgot about my blog reaching its tenth anniversary this year. Well, I did think about it a few months back, and of course I thought I had plenty of time to think about it because I knew I started it in October (around the time of my 47th birthday).
But of course, time has flown by and now we're here and I haven't really thought any more about it. But it seems a shame not to at least address it as there can't be too many independent watch blogs still standing after a decade... probably because anyone that had one eventually buggered off to YouTube.
I never wanted to go that route. Despite being rather dishy in person, oddly I'm not that photogenic and I always hated the sound of my own voice (too high and too softly spoken - no one can hear me unless I shout!). I did once try to make some 'YouTube' content talking about a different subject (music) and concluded that I'm just not terribly good at it, so blogging it was.
But Rob, you say... no one 'reads' blogs anymore. And it's true, people can barely be bothered to 'read' anything any more. The mobile phone has knackered their attention spans and pummelled their brains to dust, with nothing deemed worthy of attention unless it contains the headline 'IT'S OVER!!!'.
Hence my little joke at the top of the page there...
Little did we know how lucky we were back in 2016; before the pandemic, before years of watch price inflation and before ARTIFICIAL F**KING INTELLIGENCE. God I hate AI. But it seems AI loves my blog. It's the only plausible explanation for my page view numbers being so ridiculously high. Because I refuse to believe I can get 450,000 page views in one month from actual people on a blog that only discusses one brand of watch.
I am so damned popular right now!
Pity I never monetised the blog isn't it, but then bots probably don't click on adverts and I never wanted 'Longines' or 'Seiko' ads popping up between all the TH content, so that was never really an option. Someone suggested I do a Patreon at one point, but the last thing I need is to ladle more pressure on my shoulders to come up with 'content', this was supposed to be a fun hobby, not a second job.
Speaking of which, why can't anyone just do things for fun any more? Why does everything have to be a 'side hustle' or 'passive income'? Sure I could use more money, I might even be able to afford a new TAG then... but no. That would remove every last bit of fun from it. Besides, the whole point of my blog is to be independent of influence. If I think a watch is great or if I think it sucks, I don't want to have to second guess voicing my opinion.
It's a shame that the ten year anniversary finds me at such a low ebb. As you may have read previously, my enthusiasm for writing about watches has waned considerably over the last few years. There are several reasons for this, but perhaps the main one is that I just don't really like the vast majority of watches that TAG Heuer are making right now.
I visited a boutique last week ('On the Wrist' posts coming soon) and aside from a few highlights, mostly I found it incredibly underwhelming. And the prices are just insane... I really don't know how people afford new Carreras and Monacos, I really don't. But anyway, let's not rehash all that again.
This could be my 2026 Watch of the Year!
Of course if my blog was a simple 'watch' blog, rather than a TAG Heuer specific blog, then I'm sure it would be easier for me to find something to get excited about. But the truth is, I really don't like much outside of TAG Heuer. I quite like a Cartier Santos (preferably a black or grey one) and there's the Alpine Eagle of course... but I've always been very specific about my interest and to date my collection is still 100% TAG Heuer.
But I've always said the great thing about TAG Heuer is that they don't stand still. And that's never been truer than today. New watches come and go remarkably quickly, like the last generation of Aquaracers that were launched in 2021. Already gone and replaced with a new range of 42mm models... so there's always hope that next year will see new watches that have more appeal and if not, well, I will try and make more of an effort to write about the watches I do still care about.
Anyway, I don't want to bore on any more, so I will just say thank you to everyone who has contributed to making this blog what it is and thank you to all those who visit and especially those who leave comments. I know there have been many people who have found useful information here, especially when it comes to manuals for complicated movements like the Calibre S and Multigraph.
And as for those tech-bro arseholes who seemingly scrape my blog every day for their own benefit, well obviously they can go fuck themselves. Jail cannot come soon enough for these corrupt pieces of shit. I just hope they collapse before they can IPO and get hold of people's pension funds.
