Miracles of Modern Chemistry

Shane McGowan, who shares his December 25th birthday with someone or other, turns an improbable 50. How has he lived so long? The booze, he says.

"Smoking, drinking, partying -- that's why I've stayed alive as long as I have," the hard-boozing MacGowan told Britain's Daily Mirror, while flat out on his back in a trashed London hotel room.

"And I've got better with age, that's what's meant to happen. I party my way through life, it's what I like to do.

But the big news in the interview is that we, the parents of Liberal Mountain, are going to have to come up with a new negative exempla to enforce rules concerning dental hygeine.

MacGowan said he does not have own mobile phone, a computer or an iPod, but might treat himself to some teeth in the new year. MacGowan's mouth is rock's most notorious dental disaster zone.

"I am going to get my teeth done -- emergency dentures to stop my face falling apart," he said.

"It's not painful but your bone structure is kept in by your teeth, so I might get some dentures in and leave it at that, or get them done gradually."

Timothy Spall might do in a pinch....