While the Dan Brown phenomenom roles relentlessly on, I was amused to see an advert for the Da Vinci Chronograph. A bargain at just £145, made by an ancient German company or something.
Anyway, I’m not exactly a horologist or anything, but it strikes me that Da Vinci owned no such watch. He died in 1519, and undoubtedly brilliant though he was, he didn’t make watches. I’ve read Longitude and know what a difference John Harrison made some two hundred plus years later. So the idea of a Da Vinci Chronograph has about as much going for it as a Cleopatra Alarm Clock or a William the Conqueror DVD Player.
Incidentally, I came across this ad after reading an article from a recent Observer magazine about Paul McKenna. I’ll admit to being interested in pieces about him because I think that while he’s genuine, I’m not sure that there’s anything much to the whole hypnotism (and by association NLP) at all. Indeed, I believe that it’s just suggestable people being easily suggested to! The other reason I like to read something about him is that he went to my school, and it seems that no article can go by without him saying how much he hated it:
Though, in a way, it did intrigue me, because I saw that the Jesuits are a bunch of mind-manipulators and … I remember reading recently that Hitler had the SS trained on the Jesuit training models … you might want to check it, but it wouldn’t surprise me. It’s a highly manipulative doctrine. But really, I think, apart from Catholic school, I had a happy childhood.’
That’s not my experience of school in the slightest – but then he seems to have deeper issues with his upbringing and what, if any part, his parents’ religion seemed to have on him. I’m pretty comfortable in that regard.