Reporting on Formula One races may seem a glamorous, exciting life, but lurking beneath the glossy surface are very real dangers: Sleeping sickness brought on by Michael Schumacher, total insanity caused by deciphering whatever Eddie Jordan is trying to explain . . . but worse awaits.
There you are, having a quiet dinner with colleagues when your conversation on just who finished fourth in the 1974 Italian Grand Prix* is interrupted by the dread words: "I think you'll find . . ."
His (it's always a he) name is Kenneth but he will explain that only his mother calls him that and that his friends call him Ken, but never, ever Kenny. He wears a 1981 Ferrari jacket which he bought on eBay. You won't have to ask about the jacket - he'll tell you. It was once brushed up against by Gilles Villenueve. A piece of history.
Ken, like all true Ferrari fans, loves Gilles Villeneuve. A lot. It's his way of displaying his romantic side, which is otherwise utterly hidden behind the mountains of faded old copies of Autosport that fill his spare room.
Ken, aged 40, still lives with his mother. He has assiduously collected all known footage of Gilles on to a precious collection of videos, which he is carefully considering transferring to DVD one of these days.
While his mother wants to watch Heartbeat, Ken insists on post-Grand Prix evenings of watching ancient races over tea and biscuits. This allows him to display his encyclopaedic knowledge of Grand Prix racing 1972-84 to his two highly impressionable mates. It would be, he says with a grin to his guest, Charlie, a Mondello marshal, his specialist subject on Mastermind.
Meanwhile, Ken nurtures his cult of Gilles. It's a love for an iconoclastic hero who drove very fast to an untimely death. Well, yes, Niki Lauda won three championships, but Gilles (it's Sempre Gilles) drove around on three wheels, in third gear, with his arse on fire to finish 11th. A real racer.
Nowadays, the grid is just full of no-hopers only in it for the money. Like Jacques Villenueve, he snorts derisively. Proof positive that the golden days are well and truly gone.
In the old days the drivers were special . . . Gilles, Peterson, Rindt, Revson, Von Trips, anyone involved in a death on the circuit, preferably fiery. That's the hallmark of greatness because it offers Ken the chance to tell you about the time he met Ronnie Peterson at Zandvoort in 1978 - just a race before his death, you know.
Because Kenneth has been to lots of Grands Prix. Started at Brands Hatch in 1972, when he was eight. Of course, Brands is a far superior venue to Silverstone. Such a shame they can't have the race there - and you do know why, don't you? Even if you do, Ken will tell you, before adding that Donington is equally good, and how he remembers being there in 1993 for Senna's amazing race in the rain.
At which point Ken's new friend, Dave, whom he met on the charter flight over, will interject, saying Jordan's debut win in the wet at Spa was the best ever. "I'm tellin' ya, Kenny. Definitely. Amazing to be there."
Dave is a Jordan fan. "Big-time. Ever since Dallas '91." At which Ken rolls his eyes at you and mouths the word "Phoenix", adding that Dallas was in 1984.
Dave, though, is oblivious. He is explaining how great it was to "be there" in '98. The Irish partied harder than everyone else on the campsite that night. Rake of beers around the caravan, outsinging, outdrinking the mad Germans with their mad Michael Schumacher engine-noise tapes.
Ken is now looking at Dave as if he's just discovered his new friend is in fact one of the human-impersonating aliens from his favourite TV series, V.
Ken proudly says that he has CDs of engine noises on constant rotation in his 10-CD autochanger. He's inordinately fond of the Ferrari 126C2 . . . for obvious reasons, he sighs.
Dave, on whom it's dawning that his newfound friend is not, in all likelihood, "up for the craic", changes the subject. Having asked if you go to all the parties, told you that you have the best job in the world and gone on to question your lineage, he now asks the TV commentator in your group if he can "play a request for Raymondo and Paolo from Raheny, from Dave" on Sunday.
It's three in the morning but more beer arrives ("this Hungarian stuff is brutal but, sure, it does the job," says Dave with a matey laugh).
Then Ken leans in and begins to tell you about why you were wrong last week when you said that David Coulthard's problems were caused by mid-corner understeer, even though David may have told you that, because, if you looked at the car, Ken thinks you'll find that . . .
* Oh, for God's sake, Arturo Merzario finished fourth in the 1974 Italian Grand Prix - but I had to look it up
Kilian Doyle is on leave