Berliner Tageblatt - Pogues star Shane MacGowan admitted to hospital

The 64-year-old Celtic punk rocker's wife Victoria Clarke wrote on Twitter on Monday that MacGowan was "in hospital again and really hoping to get out asap!".

Clarke, 56, asked that fans "send prayers and healing vibes", sharing a picture of the Irish musician and songwriter smiling in an armchair and wearing a crucifix on a chain.

MacGowan, who rose to fame in the 1980s as the battered and drawling face of The Pogues, was previously admitted to hospital in 2015 after breaking his pelvis that left him using a wheelchair.

In 2016, Clarke revealed MacGowan, whose persona was synonymous with boozy excess, was finally sober.

On social media fans lamented MacGowan's admission to hospital during the build-up to Christmas, wishing him a speedy recovery.

One Twitter user dubbed the dishevelled singer "the sound of Christmas".

MacGowan's "Fairytale of New York" duet with Kirsty MacColl has regularly topped polls as listeners' favourite Christmas song in Britain and Ireland.

But when the ballad of a skid-row romance was released in 1987, it failed to make it to Christmas number one in the UK charts, missing out to the Pet Shops Boys "Always on My Mind".

M.Furrer--BTB