Shane MacGowan

In this most Irish of weeks, it's quite nice to see the otherwise staid NYT going slumming to profile the wonderfully incorrigable and unrepentant old boozehound himself, Shane MacGowan.

It might be said that Mr. MacGowan speaks in a Joycean stream of consciousness, but a conversation with him is closer to a pinwheeling ramble with a very well-seasoned regular at the corner pub. He speaks in a flurry of digressions, uttered in a semi-slurred Irish-London accent that is tough to decipher at times.

But, oh my, I haven't seen a picture of him in a while. That photo makes him look like Robert Smith of The Cure. (Not a good thing, to these eyes.) Bejappers!

In other recent Pogues news, Dogmatika posts an intriguing review of Pogue Mahone: Kiss My Arse, the Story of The Pogues, by Carol Clerk.