The last thing he did before leaving was to take it off, place it on his desk - and smash it to pieces with a mallet.
"Because when I look at the state of our rivers, our atmosphere and our people, I don't need a watch to tell me what time it is," the departing Green MP shouted, as the handcuff that had chained him to the system shattered across the chamber.
And that was Nandor Tanczos done.
This country's first Rastafarian MP said his goodbyes to Parliament yesterday in a valedictory speech watched by more than 50 friends, family and supporters in the public gallery - and many others around the world via the Internet.
He said he had known what to expect when he came to Parliament, but had still been surprised by the intensity.
"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."
He had expected "a bunch of bastards", but had been wrong - though he was ashamed by the shenanigans during Parliament's question time and saddened that the national legislature was not shown more respect by its members.
He also launched a few well-aimed shots at the press gallery, describing the journalists who covered Parliament as "buzzards" interested only in the latest "political corpse".
But most of the farewell speech was devoted to the issues that drove him to Parliament in the first place. He urged faster action on climate change and finding alternative energy sources as oil stocks dwindled.
He also hoped for the day when New Zealand became a republic and he called for Maori sovereignty.
The most poignant words were for the people he aimed to represent: the disenfranchised and the different.
"I stood, I guess, to demonstrate that you don't have to be of this world to be effective in it. Be true to oneself, whoever one may be, and take your seat as an equal, whether it's here in the House of Representatives or in the dust of the streets."
After nine years, it was time to cleanse his soul for an MP who resented being shackled to the prison bars of time, and whose time was now over.
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