Well, it's not always easy, as one of our readers pointed out when we named his job one of the best in the business.
It is MoRphine-2, who you may remember bombing around the Hungarian hills in his old Toyota, who came to speak about the challenges of working a serious job writing about cars, provoking an interesting conversation with CobraJoe.
MoRphine-2
I work at a production company, and we produce, among others, a weekly motoring magazine. It so happens, that one of the mainstays of my job is producing this show, sometimes even filming and editing. So for all intents and purposes, i am a motoring journalist - as i guess some of you already know.
However, i am a motoring journalist in a small central European country, hard hit by recession and corrupt government, so our car market is smaller than that of most medium-sized German or British counties. I am a patient guy, but for almost a decade into working this job, no one phoned me asking where to park that Aston, and now i'm getting bored with all the diesel Fiestas and Kias - they're all alike, you know. It's not to say we don't get exciting cars, because once in a while we do - but those are just as close to Christmas to us, as it would be to most of the commentariat here.
Still. Could be worse.
CobraJoe
There's always the possibility of having fun with those boring little cars... You could get a bunch of them and run them through a timed trial on a track or road course and say you're trying to find the best enthusiast friendly cheap car. Or you could compare one directly to a series of used cars to find the best value or entertainment.
Of course, that's if you have the freedom to come up with segments like that.
MoRphine-2
That's even bigger a curse than the one i mentioned above. Because our market is so small we operate on a budget smaller than what TopGear spends on coffee breaks - so no chance of renting out road courses, or breaking stuff.
But i am not complaining. And because cars today are so good - really, i mean that - this does not mean this is a shitty job, no way. Lots of fun was already had, and will be in the future. And also, even these "cheap" cars get presented to us in fenomenal locations when launched to the press, so it gets quite good sometimes - like driving a 180hp turbo Astra GTC on the winding roads of Mallorca, for two days straight, and with only my best buddy around for company - we happen to be colleagues turned friends. Or like driving the Toyota GT 86 around the hills and on a track around Barcelona. No, i'm not complaining.
I'm the one with the grey temple btw. And no they didn't let us drive the 2000 GT.
Not everyone gets to live easy like Clarkson, as it seems.