It was a case of men and machinery behaving badly this week.

First up we had the restaurant below and to the right of us causing mass grief with a clapped out extractor fan!

The noise was akin to a motorbike spluttering and revving except a motorbike usually moves on, thus dispersing noise pollution. This dirge continued for well over an hour and a half, occasionally stopping to choke and lulling us into a false sense of security that all would, once again, be ‘quiet on the Western front’.

But alas. After a few more asthmatic wheezes the drone would continue.

Obviously this isn't ideal when running a sound studio. It was of course also our busiest day of the week – Typical and Happy Blooming New Year!

Well our brave soldier, and man on the ground, Mr Charles Nove went in to investigate.

The restaurant in question said that they couldn't turn the fan off as it was the only ventilation for their kitchen and they would lose money. Charles explained the nature of our business and said that we too would be losing money if the racket continued.

We officially had a cold war situation on our hands people.

Charles decided to bring in the heavies ........or the environmental health squad to you and I.

They were very helpful and said we had a strong case, but you know how it is when say your computer has been playing up and you call the IT guy over to have a look and it miraculously works again, well that is exactly what happened when Charles was on the phone to the ‘keep it down’ man. One choke, one last violent shake, and just like a very exaggerated stage death, the fan breathed its last breath. RIP fan – may we all now live in peace!

I don’t know if anyone else got caught in the flash flood on Friday afternoon in London but my god did it chuck it down. It was like Arma-bloody-geddon!

Ivan Massow had made a return visit to our studio to listen to the piece as recorded last week with editing and music effects now in place. The poor chap, who let’s face it, could have afforded to land a helicopter on our roof if necessary, had cycled to us! Not only that but he had left all waterproofs at home and only had a fleece for protection.

A very messy Massow no doubt made it back home to his renovated mansion in Clerkenwell! You gotta love his no airs, no graces attitude.

Just after Ivan left to get soggy, Neil Morrissey, who had a car laid on for him, arrived at our studio a little drier and with a massive spring in his step.

No Amanda Holden wasn't in the vicinity – Ouch!

Unfortunately his affair with Holden has become one of the things synonymous with all things Neil Morrissey.

I get the feeling that this cheeky chap can turn women’s heads and knows how to have a good old party. Even Ivan Massow backs up this claim by telling us that Neil would often frequent Ivan’s sprawling pile in Frome Somerset and end up being drunk and disorderly in his very garden – small world – In fact it may have been this chance meeting at A1 that led Ivan to comment about Neil in his column for the Daily Telegraph (Sunday 16th Jan 2011) saying....

“I have been a resident of Frome for so long now that I recall, with some nostalgia, the time when someone shouting, "I've just seen Madonna at the cash-point machine" got everyone excited. Nowadays, her occasional loitering outside the supermarket stirs up as little local interest as finding that Neil Morrissey has behaved badly once again in the Sun Inn, or Frances De La Tour has been bed-&-breakfasting at the Melrose guest-house, or that the Prime Minister and Roy Strong are having a multi-cultural chin-wag in the Blue Boar Inn”

Gosh – A1 clout or what!

So back to bad boy Neil.

Born in 1962 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, Neil suffered a traumatic childhood, having been separated from his parents at the age of ten and placed in care after being involved in a string of burglaries.

He won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, and made his television breakthrough in Boon.

His role in Men Behaving Badly made him a household name; and his voiceovers for Bob The Builder made him extremely wealthy.

He’s also famous for well-publicised romances with Liz Carling, Rachel Weisz and the aforementioned, Amanda Holden.

In recent years he has divided his time between television dramas such as Paradise Heights, West End theatre (A Passionate Woman, Acorn Antiques: The Musical, Guys And Dolls) and investing in production companies and hotel properties.

However it was somehow inevitable that Neil Morrissey would one day end up running his own pub. From playing the lager-loutish Tony in Men Behaving Badly to his investments in Dylan Thomas’s old drinking haunts in west Wales, Morrissey is no stranger to propping up a bar – just ask Ivan Massow!

And so, in a classic case of the poacher turned gamekeeper, he finally got round to owning his own drinking establishment. Together with TV ‘beer chef’ and author Richard Fox, he became a part owner of Ye Olde Punch Bowl Inn in the Yorkshire village of Marton cum Grafton.

The duo’s six-month journey from finding the 17th-century property through to brewing and selling their own beer (Morrissey Fox Blonde Ale) on the premises was documented in a TV series, Neil Morrissey’s Risky Business, shown on Channel 4.

Neil says of his own brew:

“If Kronenbourg is the Coldplay of the beer world, then my own beer is like John Lennon and Julie Christie driving through London in a silver Jaguar E-Type circa 1967 with The Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset blasting out of the speakers”

Keeping with his pub theme he goes on to say:

“Martin Clunes is a beer god. I’d never say no to a long session in the pub with him. Elizabeth I would have been one of my ideal drinking partners. Apparently, she used to down four pints of ale before breakfast. In an ideal world, she’d have joined me, Keith Moon, John Lennon and all the Bloomsbury Group around the table of a good boozer. Now that would have been a session and a half”

I agree - Royalty and Rock ‘n’ Roll – Get In!

So I guess when talking all things ‘pub’ fewer things are funnier than a good pub joke and here is one of Neil’s favourites:

“A man is sitting in the pub when he hears a bowl of peanuts on the bar saying, ‘Ooh, you are lovely; you’re really amazing.’ Then the fruit machine shouts, ‘Rubbish – look at the state of that haircut. And your socks don’t go with your shoes.’ The barman apologises. ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘The nuts are complimentary but the fruit machine is out of order.”

Cheers Neil!

London Showbiz News:

So last night saw the second round of Dancing on Ice to see who would be for the chop before the real show gets going.

Jayne Sharp, who has been mentioned on my blog before, is married to ‘Comedy Dave’ Vitty who took part in last night’s show. We had Jayne in, not once, but twice last week and she gave us the low down on Dave’s training.

She said that he is actually a very good skater but she felt the routine he was given didn't really show case that enough. Instead it focused on rigid dance moves which outlined what Dave’s really not good at – Dancing!

Dave, who is used to being heard and not seen, says of his brave step into the Lycra limelight:

“My attitude on this is that you either do this show or you don’t, and if you are going to do it you've just got to throw yourself in and embrace it. If they want to stick me in a pink costume one week then fine, it doesn't bother me.”

It seems that somebody took him at his word, as last night poor Dave was trussed up like a fab lolly on a psychedelic day!

VITTY for VICTORY!

So there we have it folks. Machines and men behaving badly - or just behaving in a new, weird and wonderful way. As a wise person once said "life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you're going to get" and that is just how I feel working here at A1 VOX!

(I believe it will be a couple of weeks until my next Blog so until then keep it warm and lucid people).