Three dress watches nice enough to pull a watch writer out of his funk

This week, I'm gonna start with a moan about something unrelated to watches. Nope, I'm not even gonna attempt one of my tenuous, "barely there" segues. What's the whinge? Well, I suppose it's specifically about Arsenal Football Club being awful, but more generally about the things in life that you love constantly disappointing you. Actually, it's really more about Arsenal being awful. I don't know why I persist with this relationship. I invest so much in it, yet I get little back but false promises that it'll get better. Should I just end things? I mean, has the passion gone? Who am I kidding? Arsenal are playing Crystal Palace today!

Anyway, watches. So, while wallowing in my Arsenal funk, I saw this pearler from Oris, the Carl Brashear dive watch (right). For those who have never heard of Brashear, he was a United States Navy master diver, the first African-American to attain that vaunted position, which he achieved despite having only one leg. Basically, he was rather good at his job. Oris has decided to pay tribute to Brashear with a wonderful new watch, the highlight of which is the bronze case and unidirectional bezel. The 42mm case not only marks this watch out from other dive watches, but it's a nice link to nautical timepieces of the past and, as the watch ages, the patina will give this piece a truly unique appearance. Features are simple, with just a date window at the six o'clock position, and the watch is water resistant to a modest 100 metres. Inside is an Oris Caliber 733 movement based on a Sellita SW200, so it's robust and dependable if not spectacular. Limited to 2,000 pieces, the Carl Brashear dive watch is priced at HK$21,300.

Another piece that caught my eye recently is the Glashutte Original Senator Excellence (right). It might not immediately strike anyone as anything but a nicely crafted, classically styled watch but what's intriguing about it is the new movement, the Calibre 36. There's not enough room here to write about the Calibre 36 and do it justice, but, very briefly, its creation was guided by several principles, two of which were extreme stability and a running time of 100 hours. The Senator Excellence looks like a classic watch but it is actually a high-performance, high-precision timepiece that is at the cutting edge of mechanical movements. I prefer the black-dial version as the colour works best with stainless steel and also comes with arabic numerals, but there is a steel case and silver dial option and a red gold case and silver dial option. The case is sized at 40mm and features are kept to just hours and minutes, which, again, for a dress watch, is a plus. The Senator Excellence black dial is priced at HK$71,500.

Finally, we have the Omega Globemaster Master Chronometer Annual Calendar (right). Launched to great fanfare at Baselworld last year, the Globemaster line from Omega may look like a glorified Constellation, due to its "pie pan" dial design, but it is more than that and watch geeks will love that this year's Globemaster has a Co-Axial Master Chronometer Calibre 8922, Omega's top-shelf movement that has all sorts of whizzbang innovations and has passed innumerable quality and precision tests. In another nod to Constellation watches of the past, the case is sized at a modest 41mm. And, yes, it's made of steel, so the price remains accessible. Overall, this is a very handsome watch with the best tech you can get and all for a rather tempting HK$69,100.