I’ve been waiting in anticipation since they started the reverb work on the “old” Maroochy Bridge. You may recall I was intrigued to see whether they were going to make both bridges the same in appearance.

To my amazement, this week as I travelled home I could clearly see that the bridge workers have actually raised the level of the old road to match the new one. I don’t know how you do that, when one bridge is clearly lower than the other, but done it they have.

So I can only assume that over the next few months we’ll see yet another beautiful bridge swan raised from a sow’s ear.

All good ... until it rains
It's no secret that I love riding my 50CC Aprillia scooter. It’s environmentally friendly compared to the diesel-guzzling, black, Hummer-looking 4x4 beast that I usually drive.

My scooter costs $8 a week to run, and has fake plastic replica Harley Davidson handlebars so you can get dressed up in bikie clothes, and really look the part.

Unfortunately where I’m concerned, I’m actually bigger than the scooter, so at times I have that “Shrek on a trike” look. The fact is, scooters are good… until it rains, and then you’re in for a miserable ride.

Last Sunday evening, for example, I went for a ride to feel the freedom of the wind whistling across my scalp when I was caught in a sudden torrential downpour which caused my scooter to snuff it on the narrow Pacific Paradise roundabout right in front of a Sunbus. Doesn’t that make your butt cheeks pucker?

Lemon-sucking treasurers
Paul Keating was one, Peter Costello was one, and now we have Wayne Swan. I can’t help but think after seeing all three of these custodians of our country’s finances that a pre-requisite for being an Australian treasurer is to look shifty, with your eyes just that little bit too close together to be unable to find the humour in anything and to look like you’ve just sucked a lemon wrapped in alfoil.

Those awful dentists
Ten-year-old Jackson has always called them the “awful dentist". What he is trying to say is the orthodontist. I know I’ve moaned in this column before about the cost of straightening one’s children’s teeth but my 14-year-old, Max, has just cost me $1700.

When I was growing up I don’t think anyone cared whether your teeth were crooked or not, or maybe we were just too poor to bother.

But these days if you don’t have a good orthodontist – you’re no-one.

I’m working too hard
The story of the movie I’m doing continues.

For three nights last week the filming finished at 1.15am. This, combined with me getting up at 3.30am to do my breakfast show, made for an interesting final scene.

My actress wife and I were supposed to have just finished watching a DVD in our pretend loungeroom. There is a late night knock at the door and she leaves me there to supposedly doze off.

I played that scene so well that all I remember is a nice man calling to me from the pine forest in the back of my mind. “Big fella ... big fella.” I slowly opened one bloodshot eye to find that the voice belonged to the director.

He said, “we can shoot the scene with you asleep, Jamie, but you have to cut the snoring!”

There are not too many method actors left ... just me and Al Pacino.

Proof that I’m a failure
Apart from breaking down on roundabouts in the rain I thoroughly enjoy riding my scooter, so much so, in fact, that I have decided to go up in CCs, thus requiring a learner’s permit and then hopefully a licence for a real motorbike, not just a plastic sissy toy like the one I’m riding at the moment.

Gaining your learner’s permit for a motorbike is not really that hard. It requires that you answer five driving test-type questions of which you are allowed to get one wrong. If you check the security tape at Queensland Transport you can clearly see the “L" on my forehead because I got two wrong.

Is that proof enough?