The Pogues: When Shane met Katie...

It's 6 December. There's a Christmas tree leaning against the wall by the front door to the rehearsal studios on Brewery Road, north London, as you go down through the Victorian alley of brown-painted brick, with kerbs and stuff, off the main road. The Christmas tree is wrapped up in that polythene net, and looks a bit bent at the top.

We're in studio five, which means you have to go all the way upstairs to ask where the Pogues are rehearsing, only to be sent back downstairs, past the Christmas tree, and across the yard. This obviously used to be a factory because, in the rehearsal room, there's an axle under the ceiling with belt-wheels to drive long gone machinery.

Terry Woods is already here, playing his cittern, in his warm jacket and a fleece that zips up to this throat. He looks as though he has just turned up, but also looks as though he has always been there. Terry's always the first at rehearsals. We embrace, which is what everyone does when we've not seen one another for a long time, except it doesn't seem all that long, somehow. We're old hands at reunions, it seems, and we could almost get away with a nodded greeting.

Philip Chevron's not long after Terry. He's got a new phone, which I'm rather sad about. I miss the old one, which had acquired the scuffs and dents that one might see on a field telephone, and which last year was always going off on top of his amp, sending hums pulsing through the speakers, as it received, I don't know, football results, or alerts about theatre-openings. This new one takes pictures, and I think you can watch telly on it. His lack of familiarity with it means that, occasionally, you get unexpected calls from him, only to find he's hung up before you can answer.

And then enter, Spider Stacy - in a pacing, restless sort of way; Jem Finer, who looks more and more like a character out of a William Joyce cartoon, the boffin uncle or something; Darryl Hunt in a jacket buttoned up to his throat; and Andrew Ranken, who exudes a sort of bovine calm wherever he goes. We don't expect to be seeing Shane MacGowan. He's in Morocco, or on his way back from Morocco. It's a mystery how he gets there without help, since Joey [Cashman, his manager] had not accompanied him, so we're told. It's a further mystery how he gets back. He's instantly referred to as The Caliph, and it's difficult not to imagine him, for the time being, without a silk turban and shoes that curl over at the toe.

We're not going to see The Caliph until tomorrow, when Katie Melua shows up, too, to rehearse "Fairy Tale of New York". We have no idea about Katie Melua. I live in a cultural bubble in the United States. We want to protect Kirsty MacColl's memory, that's for sure. Consequently, and prejudiciously, I find myself imagining a sultry, predatory young woman with an agenda and records that sell well, and I know I'm not going to like her. But that's tomorrow and I'm not going to worry about it.

We've been mindful of the set-list needing a bit of a transfusion: it's been relatively unchanged since 2001 and then it was, more or less, based on an old set-list we had from 1989. We run through "Billy's Bones", which is pretty straightforward, for most of us, Darryl being the exception since he announces that he's never played the song before other than, possibly, after Cait O'Riordan jumped ship in New York, beset with the impulse to cleave herself to her paramour [Elvis Costello]. A posse was sent out to intercept her on the way to the airport. That evening, back in - what was it? 1985 or something? - Philip and Jem and I (was Philip in the group then? - I never know these things) ran through the chords on the way down to Philadelphia, or Washington, or some bloody place.

In any case, there's Darryl in the rehearsal place, today, wincing in a crinkly, defenceless sort of way at the swift passage from chord to chord, having no inkling what do with each one as it goes past. When we've more or less got that one down, and taken a moment or two to listen to it on the iPod (and to wonder how the hell Shane's going to get his teeth into all the words, bearing in mind that it was recorded almost line by line, since his voice at the end of one line overlaps with the beginning of the next), we move on to "Sayonara", which is altogether a much more relaxed affair and not much to worry about, other than what we call Andrew's pressed roll on the snare drum, when Shane sings "motherfucker kiss the ground".

We have a go at "Waltzing Matilda". We've done a few versions of this over the years, with three verses, or five, and it's a long song that, in rehearsal, with Shane not around, lacks the focus of the words and the narrative and sounds laborious and boring. We sort of give up on it. "Transmetropolitan" we have a go at too, and that turns out to be easy. And then we have a desultory sort of go on "London You're A Lady". Some of us agree it's probably not one of Shane's better songs, lyrically, though the melody is unbeatable and it's heartfelt.

It's now Wednesday. When I arrive, early - because it still feels as though there's a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in - there's a guy crouched at the foot of the Christmas tree by the back door with a screwdriver, putting a plug on the lights, which he hasn't yet strung over the branches.

We're here early to run through a few things, because, in a couple of hours, Katie Melua's going to turn up. We've got a documentary team filming us at the moment. It's weird having a camera pointed at you all day, but you soon get used to it.

Andrew takes a moment this afternoon to remind Terry of the Japanese hotelmaid's question one morning, after knocking on Terry's hotel room door and Terry opening it: "Flesh towers?" We run through a few things, again. Jem's not around . He's got a family commitment, followed by a presentation at the Science Museum. At two o'clock, Katie Melua and her team arrive. This includes her manager, Mike Batt, who has Caesarian hair the colour of the inside of a turnip. Mike Batt, to us, is the man responsible, among other things, for "Remember You're a Womble". It's hard to get that out of one's mind. He is concerned about the film-making team, but soon demurs. He has the air of needing to make things happen around him, even if it's merely for the purpose of making sure people know he's around.

Katie Melua is a diminutive, spry, canny young girl with igneous eyes, wearing a Peruvian hat with earflaps. She seems altogether too young for us hoary old tars. Then, Shane arrives and Mike Batt's eminence is suddenly and completely dispelled. Shane's wearing a coat that you might expect to find in the theatre wardrobe labelled "Dickens". It's filthy and black and is redolent of dripping alleyways and rat-runs and standpipes and influenza epidemics and prison-ships. In the departure lounge at Stansted, on the way to Bilbao, in September, he looked youthful, and slenderer, with his hair newly done and dyed the colour of soot. Now, after three months, the crown of his head is sprouting hair that's the colour of cigarette-ash, pushing the chimney-flue colour before it. But, he's on time.

I say, "You're on time!" He sits with a heavy thump on the chair in front of the bass drum, which is his sort of throne when it comes to rehearsals, dropping his clanking bags next to him and then taking in the room to see who's paying attention, a grin on his face. He says, as if it were a matter of principle of which I need reminding: "I'm never on time."

Thereafter is a sequence of awkwardnesses with Katie Melua: where's she going to stand, which microphone is hers, is it loud enough, can she hear what she wants to hear, does she want a cup of tea? Chair? Music stand? We run through "Fairy Tale of New York", and the bit "...the boys from the NYPD choir are singing...", after the waltz reprise of the opening tune - well, it throws everybody. Katie evinces, now, a degree of spunkiness that we couldn't see when she arrived: she doesn't get flustered or anything; nods, commences again and gets it right.

Mike Batt wants to know about the dancing. While some of us stifle a guffaw, he steps to the front of the stage. Shane verbally wafts him and his concerns away, saying that they'll work it out: "'snot difficult or anything, comes naturally, that sort of thing". I don't think, at this point, that Shane actually knows who this person is, because later, he sort of grabs the mike stand, for emphasis, or in alarm, as if the sudden realisation unsteadies him, and shouts out: "YOU'RE MIKE BATT! WHAT YOU DOIN' 'ERE?"

When we've gone through "Fairy Tale of New York" a few times, and Mike Batt's concerns regarding the dancing have been somewhat allayed - Katie Melua and her Peruvian hat being all but absorbed in the swirl of Shane's dark cyclone - we adjourn to Wood Lane to record The Jonathan Ross Christmas Show. At some point I find myself playing "Captain Pugwash" on the accordion. It's a tune I've always, always liked, to the point I had a mobile phone that I programmed to play it as a ringtone. When I've finished, someone laughs and says, "Mike Batt wrote that". I'm stunned, but skeptical. "Fuck off," says Shane, "it's one of the oldest tunes in the world."

On the way down to Wood Lane in one of the vans, I'm with Darryl, Andrew, and Gerry, the tour manager. Andrew tells us that last week he was on the phone with a friend. "How's it going?" the friend asked. "It's going all right," Andrew said. "We're reissuing "Fairy Tale of New York. Someone's writing a book about us. Someone's making a film about us." Andrew pauses, as he does - there's a rhythm about Andrew that it's good to know about; long pauses that sound as though he's finished, but the chances are, he hasn't. "I suppose it's when they give you a lifetime achievement award that you have to worry." The thing is, the Pogues are being presented with just such a thing, in Dublin, by RTE, on February 2nd.

We're herded in through the doors, out of the cold, through the lobby, and downstairs. Television Centre is not really as I remember it. It's a long time since I've been here - for our Top of the Pops, maybe, with the Dubliners (introduced at that time as the Dub Liners, as if they were some hard-ass reggae outfit). Now there's something New Labour about the place, with flat screens and self-laudatory displays on the walls, and photographs that are supposed to be ironic of what I'm encouraged to consider contemporary icons, and dressing rooms which look like any designer-hotel lobby.

Our dressing room has cubic seating and 1970s-type chairs. The theatrical convention of lightbulbs round the mirrors has given way to glowing, frosted-glass, discs. Rather comfortingly, there's a tattered old ironing board.

They've brought us down here in plenty of time, it's obvious. We can have our suits steamed, if any of us need that. Philip goes up to make-up; it's the first thing he does. He's known for it in the group. It's as if, were he to delay, he'd be testing the seriousness of the offer of make-up and they might retract it.

We do a soundcheck, because we're playing live. We ascend the stage. The auditorium is scattered with technicians, many of them with headphones. A camera-operator takes the time to remove his face from his eyepiece and take a photograph of Shane with his mobile phone. On the orange couches in Ross's kingdom on the other side of the soundstage, Jools Holland swivels round to look, as Shane shambles up onto the stage. Holland's face is a picture of wonder, gape-mouthed, wide-eyed, rapt, staggered. It's touching to see that kind of wonderment in someone's face. Holland can't keep his eyes off Shane, until, as if suddenly reminded that he actually knows him, he gets up, and comes across and embraces him. It looks uncomfortable as Shane's up above him on the stage, and Jools's head is forced back. There's a back-slap or two and Holland comes away looking as if he'd just been to Santa's grotto.

At the end of the run-through of "Fairy Tale of New York" (I get to play the white grand piano, which I'm fearful someone's going to suggest Jools Holland plays for the introduction, but no-one does) Shane takes Katie Melua into his arms for the shuffling corkscrew of a dance while we play the outro. I watch Katie's feet try to keep up, not subject to any rhythm but Shane's. Right at the end, Shane loses his balance. Katie tries to hold him steady, but his centre of gravity has moved. She lets go. Shane's hips meet the monitors and his face meets the hardwood floor of the stage on the far side with a wince-able crack. How he gets up, I don't know. I touch him on the arm and ask if he's all right.

"Yeah," he says, shaken. "I'm all right." And then gives me a look that's simultaneously touched and indignant.