I drive the Nissan 370z Roadster automatic.

I’ll say it from the start – whilst the 370z Roadster (the coupe roof has now turned soft) might not outdo a car like the Mazda MX-5 in terms of handling or chuckability (that’s a technical car term, has to do with science and that), the Nissan’s sum is far greater than its parts. As an experience, as something that makes you feel a certain way – well, I’d pick one over the Mazda any day. I guess this makes me a little controversial amongst the autorati, because every time I say this people tut and move tables.

And it’s funny, because I’ve never really been one for automatics. I like the thrill of a good gear change, that thrusting of your clutch leg that makes you feel like a real driver. But the automatic really suits the 370z’s lazy sense of speed. This car doesn’t sprint, it lopes and bounds. It makes you feel like a man, goads you into putting the top down. I wouldn’t do that in an MX-5; I’d wear a beanie hat in the middle of summer and pull it down to my chin.

You have to think sometimes that driving is occasionally about more than driving, it’s about being and living. It’s about the 98% of the time you’re stuck in a traffic jam and not on a B-road jaunt. I’d want a car that would encourage me to relax at the right point and provoke me at the other. The MX-5 isn’t capable of that twin mission.

Granted, the 370z can come off a little too hairy-chested, growling about the place – but as an experience, a package...I loved it.

Gratuitous photos of the Nissan Cube.

I loves the Nissan Cube, I do. I love its weird styling on the outside and its funky styling on the inside. That bizarre asymmetric rear window, the dashboard merkin and the disco lighting. I would kill for an LDN special edition with brown velour seats because they are super cool. In tribute to my ardour I have sought out a few pictures for you to dribble at (none of which showcase the particular highlights I have heretofore drawn your attention to, I now notice):

Coolness.

I watch an angry chef say something interesting.

So there was this angry chef on the television the other day. Ostensibly one of the original angry chefs (how can people who cook for a living be so angry?), this man had graduated into writing about food, which is ostensibly the 'giving up and dying' of being an angry chef. Clearly this had made him more angry still. I forget his name - and I say forget, but I mean that I couldn't be bothered to listen out for it - but it is a mild irrelevance, for Gordon Bleu is a mere facilitator to my point, which approaches steadily.

He said about food journalism that after you've been at the top level for ten years that you should readily excuse yourself from the business, because you're not going to react to a once-in-a-lifetime meal in the same way that an ordinary person would. Clearly Angry Chef wasn't into practicing whatever he might preach, because he was on the telly promoting his book, but these sage offhand remarks got me thinking.

At what point does a motoring journalist cease to have a valid opinion to the man on the street? A new car every week must begin to turn your eyes, reset your default point of reference. If they did a compulsory ten year retirement thing it would be great for me, because I might actually get offered a job at some fastidious den of hackery somewhere. But it really made me think how I approach car journalism - is it entertainment? Is it information? Am I looking for some clear insight that I can identify with on my own level?

I'm clear for me that I want to be a writer who entertains. I can't pretend to have any expertise or knowledge in the area, but I observe and I cogitate and what comes out of the other end should be fun. I would hate to get inoculated to the privilege and the excitement of it all though, to be immune to the sheer fun getting paid to write about cars and that. If that ever happens, whether after ten years or one, I should hope to have the presence of mind to excuse myself.

I drive the Mercedes-Benz E220 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY SE estate.

I like to think that there are certain things baby motoring journalists are taught to do during their foetal stages - 1) is to talk crap convincingly about stuff on cars, i.e. 'the steering feels taut and linear and there is impressive retardation from the brake pedal'. Now, I have no earthly clue what the hell that means, but it sounds good. 2) is to absorb the media narrative like a good fairytale, i.e. 'Mercedes used to be bulletproof, luxury machines for discerning German farmers, but the quality control went tits up, BMW gained the upper hand and never gave it up'.

I'm not entirely sure that 2) is true. For sure, the steering on the Mercedes-Benz E220 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY SE estate (or Bill, as he is to his friends) felt taut and linear, the brake pedal retardation just blew my little mind and I might have had a few issues with a German car using the word EFFICIENCY in block capitals, but it also felt like a lovely place to be. It was like moving the sofa really close to the telly, I felt at home and safe and quite posh. That's a nice feeling to have in a car, provided you don't flick the channel over to Cops With Cameras and find yourself with a stinger up the floorpan.

I was quite surprised that Bill was so perky, given his eco credentials. I had to be reminded that he was a diesel when I got out of him, because he's so quiet about it you really can't tell. The E-class styling still needs to grow on me a bit, but that is largely irrelevant so long as you can still aim that imperious three-pointed star at obstinate pedestrians. Bill was solid, swift, well put together. In many ways the perfect car. Sadly, you have to be shallow when you don't have long with a car, but me and Bill - I could see us moving in together.

And I'm no farmer.

I drive the Mazda MX-5 2.0 Sport Tech.

If we consider Mazda’s moments of brilliance, then the MX-5 is its first line of defence. There are myriad clichés used to describe the sporty convertible’s go-kart handling and dynamic ride, and this sort of thing can often degenerate into misty-eyed bollocks. I was sceptical, as I not so much climbed behind the wheel but fell just short of it. There’s no elegance here, until you start driving.

It’s hard to find a description for the MX-5 that hasn’t already been done to death by a writer somewhere, but I can only say that it’s automotive trompe-l’oeil. In most cars I saw away at the wheel and stab at the accelerator and I’m genuinely lucky to be alive, but something within the mechanics of the MX-5 flatters you immensely. It flatters your ego, delivers undeserved compliments and a driving experience that sort of thrills.

I’d never buy one though – and I’ll tell you why. The MX-5 is the preserve of old men with flat caps and the type of driver who will go out on a Sunday drive for the sole purpose of practising their heeling and their toeing. It may be an exciting car to drive, but it’s just not that cool.

Would I borrow one for a jaunt through countryside? Yes I would, but I’d have to drive through the town with the roof up and my flat cap pulled well down over my face.

The thrill of driving.

When I was thinking Lotus last week I came across some publicity shots of the Europa - I love them. They really capture for me the joy of driving. Perhaps not the joy of driving in a Europa, I can't vouch for that. They've got that romantic picture-says-a-thousand-words vibe about them, it makes me want to find some way to access a lot of money, buy a GT and get myself over to them there Alpentines.

The Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Beckham Special Edition.

This is the new Land Rover Range Rover Evoque. Rhymes with poke, not rock. That last part isn't in the name, I was just explaining how it's pronounced. I think they're going to need to work on the name a bit.

No need for me to tell you how to suck eggs, though - you're a cars kind of person, you're switched on, you know these things. Having said that, given all the fuss this week since the car was launched, you could be forgiven for it slipping your mind that a car was launched at all. For at the launch party there was a particularly interesting optional extra perched in the back waiting to be revealed to a slack-jawed media.

The choice of Victoria Beckham as whatever it is they've hired her to do has been criticised by many of the motoring commentators that I've seen commentating on the issue this week - she is patronisingly referred to as Posh, the former Spice Girl pop star. Of course, this glosses over the fact that the Spice Girls dominated world pop culture for several years there in the mid-90s. Beatles with boobs. Yes, they've had intermittent success since they got shafted by the Ginger one, but Victoria Beckham has cultivated a dominating position for herself as a global brand. Every hair cut she has women storming hairdressers to get the same. She wears things, they sell, she appears somewhere and the pictures are instantly worth thousands - it's all terribly simple.

So anyway - I could go on, but to cut a long blog post short, I think it would be a terrible mistake to write off Range Rover's PR efforts at this stage. Personally, I think getting a cultural icon of the stature of Mrs Beckham (no laughing at the back there) on board, as it were, is a visionary move for the marque. The woman hasn't been Posh for years, but neither has Range Rover. These things are all relative these days, and celebrity is more the sort of cachet you need to boost a brand.

I drive the Mazda 3 MPS 2.3 5-door.

I’ve often thought that Mazda is the nearly-girl of the automotive world – there’s the odd good car, an occasional moment of brilliance, but it never seems to have quite made it. Take the 3 – it looks like a simple-minded frog, and I can’t imagine it’s too high up for people making an ‘interesting small cars I would like to buy’ list in their notebook.

It has no particular charisma, it’s just there. When it’s there. The MPS though – now that’s a different story. It’s all perky and bright, an eager and willing companion. It turns into more of a Red-eyed Tree Frog – more colourful, with a touch more presence. It’s not poisonous, but is it a little carnivorous.

I enjoyed the car – it’s something you could easily live with. But it’s not a moment of brilliance. And when the market is awash with brilliance, that’s sadly what Mazda needed in order to stop it falling off its lily pad. Or something.

I drive the Lexus IS-F 5.0L V8 automatic.

Like Jekyll and Hyde, Light and Dark, Gordon and Brown, there are rarely situations where the same thing can have the potential to possess such extreme opposites in such a close amount of time that it might scare you. There are rarely cars that can transform themselves from cosseting satisfaction to psychopathic hellfire so comprehensively, so quickly.

It cruises like a – well, like a Lexus, free to burble about as it pleases. But you fiddle about on the dash, stick the car in paddleshift mode, find yourself a clear stretch of road, stretch your toes and the IS-F is coiled and ready to vapourise your underwear.

I mean, I’ve driven some fun cars, pootled about with a vapid, stupid grin on my face, but none have quite left me in such an incapacitated state of euphoria. The engine sound alone over 3500rpm is something almost sexual, it has you driving like a fool just to hear it again.

I got out of the Lexus with hyperactive little butterflies in my stomach, the first flush of true love on the way. I could think of nothing else than getting back in and spending the rest of my life driving this way and that. Unfortunately Lexus wouldn’t allow it. My time with the IS-F was sadly brief, and I never did get a chance to play with all of those buttons, but ours is a love that will last forever...

I drive a Citroen DS3.

I don’t like to sound too provincial, but one of the things that I enjoy about visiting the Big Smoke, Old Father Thames’ place, London town, it’s the people watching, the sitting on the Tube watching all those strange people who dwell within the city streets. The insecure, the try-hards, the fashion victims. They’re all a bit DS3.

Perhaps you’ll see through my blatant attempt to coin a new phrase, but Citroen’s latest car is sat on the Circle line wearing 8-inch platform shoes and a weird Gaga-esque PVC catsuit. This is because it’s a bit keen to be noticed.

Now don’t get me wrong here - underneath the glossy of-the-moment exterior there is a nice car...the C3, in fact, but Citroen has decided to wheel out the DS name as a signifier of cool. And the DS3 is quite cool, in a self-aware sort of way. I like those aimless B-pillars, the jaunty coloured roof and the gimp mask dashboard – and they’ve almost managed to out-Mini the Mini with the prodigious list of options to personalise your DS3.

The DS isn’t as darty as, say, a Twingo, but it’s less likely to do your head in. It’s not as fun to drive as a Mini, but you won’t be needing a spine replacement after an extended bout of reasonable driving. It feels big inside, and grown-up. Which is nice, because you can be cool and grown-up at the same time. Not all sexy shoes need to make your feet bleed.

Yes, it’s not as single-minded as some of the hotter hatches out there, but do you know what? I think it would make a thoroughly pleasant prospect for day-to-day running. But not much longer than 12 months mind, because it will long since have ceased being fashionable by then.