The cover of Let’s Dance shows Bowie dressed as a boxer, but does he have the pugilist skills to take on other singing celebrities. It’s time for you to vote in ten thrilling rounds of Bowie’s Beef. With a few notable exceptions I have selected male stars, roughly from his generation. So how will our hero do in the virtual boxing ring?

David Hasselhoff - First up is the clash of the singer/actors with German fan-bases. Hasselhoff AKA the American Tom Jones (or is Jones the Welsh David Hasselhoff?) has the advantage of bulk; Bowie the advantage of record sales. Whilst David B is always crashing in the same car, David H has a car that can talk. Bowie is married to Iman; Hasselhoff has met Pamela Anderson. It really is a tough one.

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Tags: American Tom Jones, Bowie versus David Hasselhoff, Fuzzball, Lets Dance, Staywatch, TVC15

Unlike Jagger, Richards is no mincer. Unlike Jagger, Richards has never done a tacky charity cover of Dancin’ in the Streets (UK number one in summer 1985) in partnership with Bowie. And unlike Jagger, there is no chance of Richards kissing and making up after a punch-up. No, Richards is clearly a man who has faced death on numerous occasions, and has so far survived every time. One also suspects that whilst this Rolling Stone is gathering creative moss, he’d still be an asset in a pub brawl.

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Tags: Bowie versus Keith Richards, Let's Spend the Night Together, Stone Love, The Beatles and the Stones

Bowie released his first hit record (Space Oddity) in 1969, so is it any coincidence that Bryan Adams remembers that summer so well? The ‘Groover from Vancouver’ has not notched up as many hits as David, but the husky-voiced Canadian managed a record-breaking sixteen weeks at the top of the pops with Everything I do. Will memories of the Prince of Thieves Soundtrack tarnish the vote?

Bowie or The Groover

• Bowie
• Groover

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Tags: Bowie versus Bryan Adams, Groover from Vancouver, I'm Afraid of Canadians, The Groover

Vitually unknown in America (though Colonials of a certain age may be familiar with his early Sixties hits Summer Holiday and Living Doll), the ‘Peter Pan of Pop’ is a British icon. Cliff may not fit the stereotype of a bruiser, but his love of tennis keeps him fit, and his love of celibacy will maintian the octogenarian’s high energy levels

So will it be the Millennium Prayer Man, or the Freddie Tribute Prayer Man?

Bowie or Cliff

• Bowie
• Cliff

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Tags: All the Young Ones, Bowie versus Cliff, Cliff, Shadows Boxing, Sir Cliff Richard, The Peter Pan of Pop, Wired for Sound and Vision

All five ‘Spices’ possess special powers. Mel is very scary, the other Mel has acrobatic prowess, and Victoria does lots of posh things, like naming her first-born after a bridge where Becks humped her. In fact Posh is even posher than the Duke, and even thinner to boot.

Is it Zig-a-Zig-arh, or Ziggy-Zig-arh? You decide.

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Tags: Bowie versus the Spice Girls, Ginger, Posh, Spice Girls, The band was altogether

Known as ‘Curtis Jackson III’ to his Mum, and ‘Ten Bob Note’ to his British fans, rapper 50 Cent will doubtless be able to talk-the-talk. Nonetheless, the rules of this virtual scrap state that no entourages, or firearms be allowed in the ring, therefore he might just end up looking like a big girl’s blouse, spitting out his own teeth, as quickly as he spits out his profound hip-hop lyrics.

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Tags: 50 Cent, Big Girl's Blouse, Hip-hop Suicide, Nine Bob Note

The bespectacled purveyors of ‘Jock Rock’ are not Scotland’s hardest looking brothers, but there are two of them, and they’re both prepared to walk upwards of five hundred miles, such determination will hold them in good stead for a Bowie-Bout.

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Tags: Five Hundred Years, Jock Rock, Letter From Young America, Proclaimers, Sunshine on Leith Machine

The Horticultural Octopus takes on the Laughing Gnome, in this intriguing contest. Bowie would likely attempt to work Starr with his jab, while the shorter combatant would rely on his street-fighting experience from the days when he was proud to be a Scouser.

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Tags: Across the Universe, Fame, It Don't Come Easy, Ringo, The Beatles and the Stones, We All Stand Together

The lissom Bowie is actually a few stone heavier than waif-like nutter Michael Jackson, and on the face of it Jacko stands no chance against his trans-Atlantic rival. Nevertheless, the sheer lunacy of Michael can not be overlooked. One suspects that Jackson may well have spent many nights ‘neath a covered wooden shaft’, and the Scary Monster from Neverland has the potential to make Bowie truly afraid of Americans.

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Following the recent death of Michael Jackson, your host, Stewart Steak, has been wracked by a lingering guilt. Should Bowie´s Beef polls be discontinued in the event of a featured celebrity dying? Should one always show respect for the dead? Or is two-faced, self-censorship a crime against artistic truth? In the event of anybody bothering to vote in this poll over the next month or two, their opinion will count.

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Tags: Earthling Song, I'm Afraid of Americans, Michael Jackson, The China Girl is Mine, The Man Who Sold the Earth Song

A bit of a local derby here, as high-pitched hatstand Kate Bush, takes on fellow Mockney oddball Bowie. Expect this bout to start with much weird dancing, mime-artistry, and absurd costume-wearing. The ‘fight’ will doubtless climax in a crescendo of interpretive dance, and shadow-boxing, with a suitably confused panel of judges left to make sense of the drama.

Who’ll create the greatest artistic impression, the Rubber Band Girl or the Man with Thursday’s Child in his Eyes?

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Tags: Celebrity boxing, Joe the Lionheart, Kate Bush, Mime Artist