Shane MacGowan of the Pogues turns 50 today. From The Guardian:

The Pogues recorded five albums together before MacGowan was sacked in 1991 because of his drinking… Over the next decade he immersed himself in a cocktail of wine, gin and tonic, long island iced tea, port and martini and put together a new band, Shane MacGowan and the Popes. He collaborated with The Jesus and Mary Chain and Nick Cave – and continued to take drugs.

His girlfriend, Victoria Mary Clarke, was once called to his house to find blood gushing from his mouth after he had tried to eat volume three of The Beach Boys’ greatest hits.

“[Shane] had become convinced that the third world war was taking place and that he, as the leader of the Irish republic, was holding a summit meeting in his kitchen between the heads of state of the world superpowers, Russia, China, America and Ireland,” she wrote in the Guardian. “In order to demonstrate the cultural inferiority of the United States, he was eating a Beach Boys album.”