| The only bone I have never broken is my neck -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shane MacGowan is lying on his back in a hospital bed, fast asleep, his mouth open. It's the last place you'd expect to find a rock 'n' roll legend... even one with such a colourful past as MacGowan. 'I've read this book five or six times,' he says. 'I just buy a new one when it gets too dog-eared.' MacGowan might not be swigging from a bottle of vodka or swaggering across a stage, but there's still the aura of a rock star about him. He wears rings on his fingers and heavy silver bracelets. The bedside talk is of being well enough for his September gigs in Dublin.A nurse brings him his chicken lunch, but he won't even look at it. He's not drunk, but after years of hard drinking, not to mention damage to his teeth, his speech is not the most coherent.MacGowan was admitted to St Vincent's last Sunday after breaking his foot at Heathrow Airport earlier that day. He fell while rushing, on crutches, to make a flight to Dublin. He was on crutches after breaking his hip the previous month. The former Pogues frontman could have been treated in London but decided to fly home instead. 'We had flown from Amsterdam after doing a couple of shows in Holland and we wanted to make the last flight to Dublin so we were rushing,' he says. 'The next thing I knew I'd fallen over and there was this excruciating pain.'I broke my hip a month ago and I was just getting used to the crutches when this happened. I've broken both my legs and both my arms before. The only thing I haven't broken so far is my neck.'When he's discharged from hospital, Shane plans to go home to Tipperary for a few days. Like any other Premier County native, he will spend this afternoon watching the All-Ireland SHC semi-final between Tipp and Kilkenny. 'Of course I'll be watching it. I'll probably be at a friend's house,' he says before lending an opinion on Tipp's chances of winning the All-Ireland for the second year in a row. 'The only problem is Kilkenny. I'm not worried about Clare. Why should I be?' he asks with his trade-mark hissy chortle.Despite his injuries MacGowan appears in good spirits, laughing and joking with the nursing staff and his fellow patients. He is adamant that his forthcoming Irish tour, which begins in the Olympia Theatre on September 5, will not be cancelled - even if he has to go on stage on crutches.'I can do my miraculous Jesus trick,' he hisses, holding his arms wide' Ireland on Sunday August 2002 |
 |
'We had flown from Amsterdam after doing a couple of shows in Holland and we wanted to make the last flight to Dublin so we were rushing,' he says. 'The next thing I knew I'd fallen over and there was this excruciating pain. But here he is in a public ward, not a private room, surrounded by bedridden old men at St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin.The 44-year-old hell-raiser hasn't even bothered to pull the curtain round him. Anyone pssing along the hospital corridor has a bird's eye view of the slumbering rocker in his gown.An hour later, he is sitting up, reading a well-thumbed paperback edition of Tim Pat Coogan's biography of Eamon de Valera, Long Fellow, Long Shadow. A stack of books, including a philosophy book, sits on the locker beside him. |