Following his concert in Paris, Robbie turned up the other day at a gathering of the world's greatest travel writers at Shakespeare & Company the legendary Paris hangout of Beckett, Burroughs and Baldwin, dressed from head to tail in torquoise.

He wasn't here to seek adoration but to listen to a discourse from Jon Ronson, British writer, journalist, documentary filmmaker and radio presenter, of whom he is a fan. So big a fan, that according to his book Feel, he has bemused Dutch audiences by reading passages from Ronson's books.

Fans of course know him as a reader, Geri Halliwell for one has outed him, although the official line is that his favourite is a children's book The Adventures of the Wishing Chair by Enid Blyton.

We do know, however, that Robbie is obsessed with the conspiracy theorists Ronson chronicled in his bestsellers Them and The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Moving away from literature, Robbie has also spent £25,000 on a rare set of Andy Warhol prints. He purchased four colourful pictures of Muhammad Ali and has apparently hung them side by side in his Notting Hill pad. There are only 150 sets of the prints and Ali owns one himself.

One of Robbie's friends told a newspaper: "They're quite pricey but Rob wants to start collecting a bit of art.

"He's a huge Ali fan and this seemed the ideal way to get started.

"He is keeping his eye out for stuff he fancies now and is doing a bit of reading up."