I must stop writing about James Bond. I must stop writing about James Bond. I must... OK, I'm doing lines for my Madame Fashion Editor as punishment for this column, but she's allowing me to say farewell to my unhealthy obsession with 007 with a swansong on Bond-like watches.

Over the years, Fleming's hero has had a number of extraordinary timepieces equipped with funky hardware: a buzzsaw, laser beam, grappling hook, detonator for explosives, and even an electromagnet that comes in handy for unzipping a young lady's dress in Live and Let Die. But New Bond relies less on gadgetry and more on realism, so Daniel Craig's Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m Co-Axial Chronometer in Quantum of Solace is simply the production model; it is nevertheless a serious diver's watch, water-resis- tant to 600m, with a helium escape valve and a diver's clasp on the stainless steel bracelet that allows you to extend the length to accommodate a wetsuit.

If you fancy something more exclusive, there is a limited-edition version: the Seamaster Planet Ocean 600m Quantum of Solace model has a black textured surface on the dial that is supposed to be reminiscent of the grip on Bond's trademark Walther PPK, no less. There's a 007 logo on the back of the case, and each one is individually numbered. Omega has made only 5,007 (ha!) of these babies.

Away from fiction, there are some watches designed for real action men. When the French adventurer Michel Fournier hatched a plan to skydive from the outskirts of space, he hooked up with Bell & Ross, makers of watches for astronauts, pilots and divers. Type Demineur is the watch of French civil defence bomb squad specialists, and the company was chosen to design the 20th anniversary watch for RAID, the elite body of the French national police force (the result: the wonderfully named BR01-Type Intervention).

Fournier was equipped with a Bell & Ross Instrument BR02 watch for his plummet to Earth. He was to achieve the fastest and longest freefall ever, reaching 930 miles per hour and breaking the sound barrier. He would experience an average temperature of -120C (-184F). The BR02 would certainly have been put through its paces.

In the event, Fournier's stunt was called off. But had he made it and landed off target by mistake, he'd have benefited from having a Breitling Emergency timepiece to hand. This has a pullout antenna that activates a built-in microtransmitter that will broadcast for 48 hours on the 121.5MHz aircraft emergency frequency. Over calm seas or flat terrain the signal has a range of about 100 miles (assuming the search aircraft is flying at 20,000ft). That kind of fact is hard to top.

As a footnote, there is a nice range of Bond villains' watches from Swatch. There are 22 models in the 007 Villain Collection, one for every Bond film, and each is designed to reference the bad guy (or girl) in question, from Dr No onwards. They're cheap, cheerful and out now for Christmas. Now that's what I call perfect timing.