Seen plenty of beautifully produced watch magazines, with gorgeous photography, interesting watches... and copy that might as well have been written by the manufacturer's marketing department.

Car mags seem to get the balance better, more in Europe than the US I must say, with some properly critical writing. Think of Car magazine's "Lemon" cover, or Volvo removing its advertising from the magazine for the best part of a decade. Yet even they seem to find a Jaguar better than any other mag in its first test, often only to retcon that verdict a few years down the line.

Not having sacred cows is a good start. Rolex make some ugly watches, some Pateks are a bit bland and, as far as I'm concerned, Panerai is an "Emperor's new clothes" con job! As for Heuers, well I never liked the Monaco. All Carreras are created equal of course. Just some are more equal than others. And for each of those opinions, there will be someone with the diametrically opposite view. Which is good, if they are open to discussion, and bad, if they only wish to toe the party line.