gum, sodomy and the gnash

You know what you're going to get from this blog, broadly speaking, I like to think: ridicule and/or bile directed at religion and other forms of harmful irrationality, deep deep cricket statology and the very hottest and freshest developments in showbiz dentistry.

It's to uphold my obligations in respect of the last of these that I offer you the news of Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan's spiffy new gnashers. These are dental implants that he had done recently, and their construction is apparently the subject of an accompanying documentary Shane MacGowan: A Wreck Reborn. I suppose it's possible that he had to agree to the documentary to finance the work, although you'd think the constant influx of royalties from Fairytale Of New York would have kept him fairly flush. Then again his bar tab must be pretty crippling. I suppose there may also have been a need to pay some medical bills after the incident in August where he fractured his pelvis after attempting, and I quote, "a complicated dance move".

As it happens MacGowan has flirted with reality TV before in the form of the rather bizarre Victoria And Shane Grow Their Own, a one-off 2009 special in which he and his long-time partner Victoria Mary Clarke try to maintain a vegetable garden, with predictably shambolic results.

But just whooooaaaahhh there, Neddy, you'll be saying - I recall a blog post from a while back (early 2010 in fact, though the accompanying story was from May 2009) about MacGowan unveiling a new set of chompers: what happened to them? Well apparently those were a lower-budget set of more traditional dentures and he never really got on with them, so he stopped wearing them. Or, equally plausibly, lost them in a pub somewhere. I should issue the usual caveat at this point about being uneasy with lazy stereotypes of lovable carousing Irish drunks, as the reality is somewhat less palatable, and there's little doubt that MacGowan - an exceptionally talented songwriter - would have achieved more and greater things in his musical career (not to mention standing a better chance of retaining his original teeth) if he hadn't been constantly pissed for the last 35 years.

Elsewhere in high-profile showbiz dentistry news, Lenny Kravitz has been busted by the Bahamian police for running an improperly-licensed dentistry operation. No, really.