Pop Pourri: have a go at these pop star anagrams

If a pop star anagram knocked on your door, you'd be horrified. Peter Andre's face, 5 Seconds Of Summers' hair, Crazy Frog's body. No thanks.

However, if you saw a pop star anagram on Twitter, you would be delighted. At least, I hope that's what happened when I foisted a game called Pop Pourri on my Twitter followers this afternoon.

Why don't you have a go too? Here are five pop star anagrams to solve. They are all acts that had a song in the UK top 40 singles chart at Halloween 1989. The first, third and last are solo artists, and the other two are groups. The number of letters of the acts' name is in brackets.

Good luck, and no cheating. I'll post the answers as a comment on this blog post in the next couple of hours.

DECLINE AIR BALLS (7, 8)

ETHICAL TORY? I'D SUCKLE IT (9, 6, 3, 3)

JOLLY BILE (5, 4)

NIX A NOB VIGIL (6, 2, 1, 3)

STIFLE A DIN, LASS (4, 10)

Further Fats: Ardently foul, wet flies: do my angry anagrams, you fart-hole (2010)

Further Fats: 5 great new dance hits from January 1989 (2019)

This is the best album of the decade, you b*stards

I got asked a difficult question the other day. The question was: what was your favourite album of the past decade. It's a humdinger, right?

It's probably the most vexing question ever to be asked of a member of the public. Worse than Brexit, worse than gold dress or blue dress, worse than Gareth Gates versus Will Young.

The people asking were Picky B*stards, a name I've had to censor so my blog doesn't fall foul of swear filters. I have to be honest: a few brain cogs fell out. Choosing the best album in a ten-year period is like choosing which puppy to shove into a blender, but in a good way. That said, when the answer came, it came easily. It hit me like a bl*ning fl*pd*bble.

In fact, there are few other albums so closely woven into my life over the past few years than the album I've chosen. It's Kiasmos by Kiasmos (pictured), a work I once rated as the third best album of 2014 but have now very much promoted it to legendary status inside my own noggin.

Read more about my choice of Kiasmos among the Picky Bs list here.

Further Fats: The 5 best electronic music tracks of the decade so far (2017)

Amma tell you about Kanye West because I am the greatest

Kanye West banned his kid from wearing makeup. Kanye and Kim have another spat. Kanye West disses Dancing With the Stars. The headlines are 120% Kanye West right now.

It's hard to avoid him. According to the wisdom of West, he's either the greatest or God's vessel or bigger than PJ & Duncan. Kanye's simply following in the size 92 boots of boastful rappers, a path well trodden by Public Enemy and Method Man and the like. It's all standard stuff.

Although perhaps Chuck D had more of a purpose: blazing a trail to empower people of colour, speaking truth to authority and building an empire along the way. With Kanye it somehow seems so much more capitalist, more commercial and perhaps more empty.

It does mean, though, it's difficult to listen to new Kanye material without sensing the eccentric Trump-ian ego behind the work. And that's a shame because I missed out on much of his earlier material, when he was proper good. When College Dropout appeared in the mid-noughties, I'd been through my hip-hop phase. And what a phase. Vanilla Ice, Snap, John Barnes.

Maybe I could learn something from Mr West. I should be more boastful, because fake confidence breeds real confidence. Yeah. I'm going to do it. Here it comes. Here comes the ego. Ready?

Amma let me finish, but y'all Fat Roland is the best. Fats is the dopest dope. More fly than the other guy. Fat Roland knows 20 digits of pi by heart. Fats, er, is, um, good, I think.

Jeez, I'm exhausted. How does he keep it up? Maybe he is the greatest. Maybe he was right about Dancing With The Stars. Maybe 120% is about right.

Further Fats: Glastonbury's got 99 bands, and Jay Z should be one of them (2008)

Further Fats: World Book Day: music books I have read and should have read (2019)