World's Greatest Jobs
Paradise island caretaker
Ben Southall, 34, of Petersfield, beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world for the dream assignment to swim, explore and relax on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef, while writing a blog to promote the area. He was selected for the $111,000 gig - a six-month contract to serve as caretaker of a tropical Australian island. He now has to live rent-free in a three-bedroom villa, complete with pool.
Luxury bed tester
A student from Birmingham City University has landed her dream job...literally! Sleeping on the job and having a lie-in will no longer be a problem for a girl, who has been selected to test out luxury beds for a month and get paid for it.
Resort waterslide tester
Surely the envy of any desk-bound office worker, Tommy Lynch has travelled over 27,000 miles this year for his job, testing holiday resort waterslides. Mr Lynch, 29, works for holiday giant First Choice, checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes, as well as all safety aspects.
Wine tester and blogger
Imagine moving to the heart of Sonoma County, where every day you'll come home to more than 450 wineries along the beautiful northern coast of California. Picture living rent free, learning the intricacies of making the perfect wine, and capturing and sharing the entire experience for your network of Twitter followers. Now imagine getting paid $10,000 a month to do it.
Candy taster
Another one of the world's best job has gone to schoolboy Harry Willsher, 12, chief taster in a sweet factory. Harry's job is to test top secret recipes. He gotthe job after winning a contest at Swizzell's Matlow to find a recruit.
World of Warcraft Tester
Do you Play World of Warcraft? And if so, do you play well? Can you farm 200 gold an hour and hit level 80 in under 2 weeks? If the answer is yes, you can apply forthe job that about 12 million players only dream about, as a Wow game tester!
Director of Fun at a museum (age 6)
A six-year-old boy who wanted to become the director of York's National Railway Museum landed himself a job - as the director of fun. The ambitious youngster got a plum role at the National Railway Museum after applying to replace retiring boss Andrew Scott. Sam Pointon sent a handwritten letter headed "Application for director" asking for an interview at the centre, in York.
Bike rider-photographer for Google Maps
Google (GOOG) has hired two lucky young men to ride around France on dopey looking tricycles snapping up photos of historical sites that are inaccessible by car. This three-wheeler is a sight with its long pole holding nine cameras, a GPS, a computer and a generator. But the contraption tooling around the French capital needs all that gear to do its job – adding three-dimensional images to Google's Street View Maps.