How do I compile my end-of-year list? Thanks for asking!

"Just how do you compile your annual Best Electronic Albums list?" people never ask me.

It sounds complicated, listening to a zillion albums and shuffling them into some sort of order. And certainly there's lots of admin and lots of writing to be done.

Actually, it's pretty easy if I follow some simple rules. Here's how I come up with my best-of-year list, posted on this blog at the end of every December.

One.

Firstly, I have to ask myself: what is an album. What *is* an album? No, seriously, what is one? I know they tend to be round unless they're made of internet. Are they like a frisbee? Is albums made of frisbees? What is music? Why are album? Huh?

Two.

When starting my list, I scratch around the bins at the back of Fat Roland Towers. There's usually a rat chewing on a Robson & Jerome CD, which I usually take as a sign. If someone's scrawled KASABIAN 4EVA next to the bottle recycling, it's straight into my top ten.

Three.

There is a practical experiment for choosing what goes into an end-of-year list. It involves: a copy of the British Book of Hit Singles; a blindfold; a set of darts. And if the dart should choose, for example, the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band who haven't graced the album charts for 45 years, it's tough. The dart has spoken. They're in my list.

Four.

Twenty phone calls, tonnes of texts, sometimes scented letters. Roland Rat never answers, but one day he will give me a tip for my year-end list. In that furry brain of his, there is a bottomless well of music knowledge. For now, I just stroke his framed photo, and hope.

Five.

I listen to music. Simple, I just listen to music. Unfortunately this never works because I have replaced my ears with eggs, and eggs are notoriously bad as audio receptors. I once replaced my knees with a small mining village in the Balkans, but the neighbours complained due to the noise.

Seven.

When writing your list, skip a number. No-one ever notices, and it's less work for you.

Eight.

Chant this incantation: huthatha baloobie flam flam yaargle butt. Then whittle a candle into a stake and bury it in a south-westerly position. When the moon is full, run about with your clothes off. None of this helps the year-end list, but it sure does pass the time.

Nine.

Go to the internet. Press control-A, or command-A if you're fancy. This will highlight the entire world wide web. Paste this into your list, making sure you choose "text only". Bang. A billion words. Somewhere in there will be the best albums of the year, a sonic record needle in a towering information haystack. You will experience a glowing satisfaction that you technically - TECHNICALLY - finished the job of end-of-year listing.

Ten.

Don't bother. Wait until I write the Best Electronic Albums of 2019, due to hit this blog before the end of the year. I'm not sure of the date yet: it depends on how much chocolate I eat at Christmas and whether I get into a fight with a reindeer again.

Further Fats: All of the previous end-of-year lists (2009–2018)

General election 2019: all the bunnies are dead

It has been an unusual few days. A week ago, everything was green fields and frolicking bunnies. But on Thursday, the general public voted for a blue-tentacled behemoth of pain and destruction, and now all the bunnies are dead.

I am, of course, talking about the 2019 general election in which a floppy-haired buffoon got a billion people to vote for him. I'm not sure what happens next, but I think all the poor people get deported to Brussels while we spend £350 million turning hospitals into whiff-whaff clubs.

The election was a conversation which essentially went like this:

"How about this?" [holds up dead cat]
"Nah."
"This?" [holds up turd on a stick]
"Nah."
"What about this?" [holds up Daft Punk's Get Lucky]
"Come on now."
"All I've got left is this." [holds up actually racist Bullingdon thug]
"Mmmm, yes!" [rubs over body for next 5 years]

I started election day keyholding for a polling station in a safe Labour constituency, and ended the day in A&E with a sprained foot. I'd done my foot in a few days ago, as mentioned here. I'd stumbled on a broken sloping pavement covered in ice, unseen because of a broken street light – it was a live-action health and safety video demonstration. My foot probably flared up again on Thursday because it was a Corbynista nervous about the election result.

The emergency room was packed to the rafters, and someone in the queue ahead of me collapsed, I suspect at the cost of the wifi. The doctor showed me a fuzzy x-ray of my foot, which had as much clarity as a Lib Dem bar chart. He said my foot won't heal until we get Brexit done.

Thankfully, this is the season of Christmas ghosts, and I fully expect Greta Thunberg to descend on a heavenly cloud to cure my painful foot. She's good, isn't she. I found Thursday's election result hard to understand, but folks like Greta give me a huge amount of hope that one day the bunnies will frolic again.

We might as well fill 10 Downing Street with spiders for all the good this new government will do. But as we limp through the next five years – literally for some of us – there's an opportunity. Let's respond to the election result by being active, being practical, and being creative.

Make your new year resolutions now. Do something special. We're going to need it.

Anybody want to come and live in Fatro Land instead?

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) December 13, 2019

What is the most successful "Dance" single of all time?

Dance Monkey by Tones And I has just clocked up its tenth week at the top of the UK singles chart. It's the longest running number one single since Ed Sheeran's all-dominating Shape Of You in 2017.

In 2016, Drake enjoyed a massive stint at number one when One Dance spent over three months in the top spot. Which makes Dance Monkey the most successful "Dance" single since One Dance.

Which raises a hugely important question. What is the most successful "Dance" single of all time? You are a lucky blog reader because I'm about to give you the answer.

1. One Dance

Drake does indeed have the most successful "Dance" single of all time. It locked out the top spot for 15 weeks, keeping the likes of Rihanna, Calvin Harris and Justin flipping Timberlake at number two. Drake is also the most successful duck-named pop star since Howard Donald from Take That.

2. Dance Monkey

There she is. Tones (pictured top) has the second most successful "Dance" single ever. We're living in classic times for singles having the word "dance" in the title. Apparently the former busker has been at number one in Australia since the dawn of time.

3. Rhythm Is A Dancer

I'm as serious as cancer when I say Snap! have the third most successful "Dance" track of all time, topping the charts for six weeks in 1992 and knocking Jimmy Nail off number one. After his phenomenal success with Snap!, square-headed rapper Turbo B went on to open a specialist cheese shop in Hull.

4. Dancing Queen

That wasn't true about the cheese shop. I went off the rails for a second there. I've got loads of tabs open, but not a single one about Turbo B's post-Snap! career. I should have made more of an effort to look him up, rather than make random punts about cheese, and I do apologise.

Disqualified – I Don't Feel Like Dancin'

The whole thing's gone flat because of my cheese shop stupidity. I can't even make the final joke about the Scissor Sisters being "anti-dance" because they don't feel like dancing. If I made that joke now, it wouldn't work because you'd be thinking about my Turbo B lie too much. I didn't even explain anything about Abba being number four. Things have really gone off the rails.

So there we go. Now you know what the most successful "Dance" single is. You'd buy speciality cheese from him, wouldn't you? He's got that kind of face. Turbo Brie, I call him.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

Main picture: OfficialCharts.com

Further Fats: No new electronica in the singles chart, repeat to fade (2009)

Further Fats: If it goes bleep, it may or may not be EDM (2013)

Drifting off (a) on my sofa, or (b) to see Underworld – delete as appropriate

Yesterday started off normal. A couple of hours on work emails, paid off a boiler repair, noshed on an overcooked pub fry-up, tootled around erranding a few errands, and finally a bus ride home during which I decided to have a nice night in.

After all, I'm getting on a bit, and I sprained my foot slipping on ice at the weekend, and I was feeling a lot better but definitely needed an evening at home in front of a warm radiator and a nice cold Netflix.

And then I saw this tweet.

Back home in Manchester for Warehouse Project tonight - We got lasers!

Tickets: https://t.co/xe1owL5c76@WHP_Mcr #Manchester #WHP#TONIGHT #UnderworldLIVE pic.twitter.com/ueYQ4gRCU3

— Underworld (@underworldlive) December 5, 2019

What? Underworld in Manchester? Why did my butler not tell me about this? I got off the bus. I bought a ticket on my phone. Three hours later, this happened.

I didn't even know they were playing in Manchester tonight. A nice last-minute surprise.

(Volume warning: loud cheers at end.) pic.twitter.com/13aIho5TCo

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) December 5, 2019

Underworld were phenomenal, with such an infectious energy. How can you not dance when Karl Hyde is gyrating and prancing and flapping and gurning? He's Tyres from Spaced. We all love Tyres from Spaced.

A few days ago, I was laid up with a swollen foot the size of a small Bavarian hamlet. And here I was at the front of an Underworld gig, dancing like an electrocuted narwhal, exchanging hugs and high-fives with absolute strangers.

And what strangers! Hello in particular to the soft-faced woman who was heavily into the Drift series, the pensioner asking for drugs who turned out to be in his 30s, and the Biffy Clyro wannabe who punched his way to the front rail only to have the tallest man in the universe tell him to fudge off loudly until he actually fudged off.

And to think I had planned to spend the evening spilling over the sides of my sofa shoving blocks of lard into my dribbling mouth while skipping through Adam Sandler films looking for the jokes. Fast-forward all you want, Fats, you'll never find them.

Thanks, Underworld, for an unexpected night out. I once blogged in the style of Underworld and compared Underworld to toast. Tonight I became one with them, and I didn't even puke up my overcooked fry-up.

Further Fats: Overheard conversation... (2005)

Further Fats: A low-denominator, low-rent scally by any other name would smell like sweets (2007)

It is my duty to inform you of this Selected Ambient Works anagram

It is my duty to inform you that Selected Ambient Works is an anagram of "Welcome Break dentists".

Less impressively, Squarepusher's 1998 album Music Is Rotted One Note is an anagram of "emits erotic note sound" while his debut from a couple of years earlier Feed Me Weird Things can be rearranged to say "eight friends mewed".

Boards Of Canada's seminal album Music Has The Right To Children is an anagram of "hi, third nuclear ghost chemist", while their later work The Campfire Headphase works out with an Iranian twist: "imperfect shah had a pee".

Venetian Snares is more of a challenge. The best I could get out of Rossz Csillag Alatt Született was "let tzars lust at laziest clogs", which they should be allowed to do. Winnipeg Is a Frozen Shithole becomes the horsey scandal "fool whinnies at neigh prizes". I'm not even going to attempt Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms.

μ-Ziq's archive release Challenge Me Foolish can be rearranged to make "nice flesh homage, lol" which is all very creepy but none of this as good as the Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works anagram. Welcome Break dentists. Yeesh. Service stations are usually quite uncomfortable experiences, and this just opens up a whole new world of roadside pain.

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

Further Fats: Fat Roland's February pop anagrams - number 4 is a doozy (2019)

And on that bombshell, Venetian Snares is back

Venetian Snares. Remember him? He is responsible for drill 'n' bass, otherwise known as music for people who enjoy shoving woodpeckers in their ears. But in a good way.

December sees the release of Greg Hates Car Culture, which was his first release on vinyl back in 1999, a year in which no-one listened to any music because they were too busy running through the streets to escape the Millennium Bug.

Who is Greg? What's he got against cars? He sounds like the kind of guy who likes Top Gear, or Clarkson's Petrol-Drenched Circle Jerk or whatever it's called now.

I've listened to the album with both of my ears, and you'll have to subscribe to Electronic Sound to know my full thoughts. But I can tell you it has a superb John Goodman sample from The Big Lebowski. If you look at the track listing, it's pretty clear which track it is. Dude.

Back in my clubbing days, the way to suss out the coolness of someone else's music taste was to lean in and say "do you like Venetian Snares?" Comedy fans do a similar thing using Stewart Lee or Daniel Kitson.

If someone said yes, you could totes be BFFs (assuming BFF meant "Breakcore Fans Forever"). But if you just got a shrug in response, it was acceptable to excommunicate them from your life or throw them out of a window, whichever was easier.

And on that bombshell, here's a squirrel racing a jet-ski in a wheelbarrow. That's the kind of thing they do, right?

Further Fats: Logical regression (2006)

Further Fats: Cars and girls (2012)

Is my Boards Of Canada mash-up art? Don't answer that

I mushed together Boards Of Canada's album covers so you can appreciate them all at once.

My visual mash-up has all the delicate tones of a bruised frog, or perhaps of a gas explosion in Piers Morgan's trousers.

I think if you played all Boards of Canada tracks at once, that would be too many Boardses of Canada. The detuned synthesisers would multiply into a cascading dischordance and, like the effect of the proverbial butterfly wings, somewhere else in the universe Brian Eno will misplace his glasses case.

What else should I blend in Photoshop? I'd love to hear your suggestions. Actually, I've no intention of blending anything else: this turned out a bit rubbish. Please don't send me your suggestions. This is all a colossal waste of time.

Life is a half-hearted faff on Photoshop and then you die.

Oh. Erm...

Jeez. I have been listening to WAY too much Boards Of Canada.

Further Fats: Merzbow makes crap an art form (that's meant to be a compliment, by the way) (2008)

For Delia Derbyshire, faffing became an artform — heck, I should know

The new Electronic Sound magazine features electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire, who is the best woman named after an English county after, er, Sarah Lancashire.

This edition comes with a particularly striking cover illustration by Adam Forster. A quick glance at his Instagram suggests he does a great line in hand snails, finger fries and skull worms. You'll have to scroll his Insta to discover I'm not making those things up.

It's a very nice issue with some good words in, and it even has Underworld talking about their Drift project, and Josh Wink talking about Higher State Of Consciousness.

However, some idiot came along to spoil everything. Hey, look, it's not my fault that I happen to know EVERYTHING about Delia Derbyshire and all you flopsies know absolutely nothing about her. Harrumph.

Here's the start of my new column about Delia Derbyshire in Issue 59 of Electronic Sound. I do apologise. By the way, as ever Joel Benjamin has done a brilliant illustration to accompany my writing - see here.

I envy Delia Derbyshire and all the music she magically made from toasters and wooden spoons and fart cushions. When I faff around all day, smearing my belly with guacamole to add texture to my sexts, I’m “procrastinating” and “avoiding my responsibilities” and “behind on my bills”. But for Delia Derbyshire, faffing became an artform: she’d whack some nipple clamps onto a lampshade and suddenly you’ve got Doctor Who. [read more by getting Electronic Sound issue 59] 

I would like to apologise to the entire history of electronic music. pic.twitter.com/HTmMZVtkJy

— Fat Roland (@FatRoland) November 14, 2019

Further Fats: Electronic words (2014)

Further Fats: Delia Derbyshire: put a donk on it (2017)