HOW TO MAKE MONEY OUT OF ADVERTISING

Ah, the joys of having dupes instead of fans: Robbie Williams is going to charge twenty-five quid for access to most of his website. Yes, if you want to read his blog, you'll have to pay in future. Clearly, charging seventy-five quid for a 'feel' denim jacket isn't keeping Robbie in chianti and king prawns, so he's found anopther way to shake people down. Of course, it's not just money for old ropey - you do get a tshirt "worth £20" when you sign up. (And which must cost all of 32p to make, we'd guess). Although you might not, as there's an asterisk:

* Please note: if stocks of the T-Shirt have run out or the T-Shirt is otherwise unavailable we reserve the right to provide you with a substitute gift of equivalent value and quality. Where possible we will use our reasonable efforts to notify you of any such replacement gift before you subscribe to the Inner Sanctum.

Yeah, "inner sanctum", that's what they're calling it. I know, I know.

For your money, you do also get a chance to watch all the videos he's ever made - promotional clips produced to help sell the singles.

It's not so much the principle here - it's nice to be in a club, and trying to leverage some revenue out of the suckers ("fans") online is probably fair enough, but it's the crap offering and, more shockingly, the price which makes me feel queasy. Since virtually everything in the "sanctum" is designed to make you want to consume more (ticket news, videos you can't download, and so on) it seems a steep price to pay to be advertised to.

music robbie williams