A cautionary tale

[KZZN]

Hi;

Over the last week or so I've made an interesting little discovery that I thought I'd share, in case it catches anyone else out like it did me.

For the past while now, I've been mainly wearing my Rolex Cellini. Now, since it's of course not waterproof, I always have to take it off before heading into the shower in the morning, and normally I leave it sitting on the bedside table.

So, one morning about a week or so ago, I noticed when I came out the shower that the watch was showing the exact same time it had been when I took it off and sat it down on the table. At first I thought maybe I'd just forgot to wind it, or it was some random one-off weirdness, or whatever. So I wound it up, put it on my wrist, and thought no more about it.

Until the next, morning, that is - when the exact same thing happened. Took it of my wrist, sat it on the table, went into the shower, came back out - and the time hadn't moved since I took it off. And the same again next morning too.

Now, at this point, I began to worry a bit - and get annoyed, since it wasn't even a year since I'd had the watch serviced by Rolex due to problems with the mainspring. And I was thinking "here we go again".

That night, I was talking about it with my wife and describing the problem, telling her that every time I took my watch off in the morning and sat it on top of my mobile phone on the table it stopped...and then the penny dropped.

The phone in question was my BlackBerry. And BlackBerry cases and holsters are...(as you may have guessed)...magnetic. The close proximity of the watch to the magnet in the BlackBerry holster was causing the Cellini movement to stop running. I confirmed this the next morning, when I put the watch straight on to the bare wood of the table, and it kept running just fine. And has done, every morning since.

So there you go, a cautionary tale for you: if you happen to have a Rolex or any other watch that doesn't have an anti-magnetic case (like a Cellini)....don't leave it sitting on your BlackBerry case !