Robbie Williams lets his wife entertain him during labour

I'm far too long in the tooth to experience any grief or faded desire when the name Robbie Williams crops up. Take That, the band the puppyesque Williams left – catapulting zillions of teenage girls into months of wailing and gnashing of their lip-balm-stained pearly-whites – were a phenomenon of the first half of the 1990s, by which time I was already grown-up enough to be Gary Barlow's dental hygienist.

Williams, in case you've been glamping on Mars with little more than a set of spoons and back issues of Twinkle for entertainment, is a pop star. Like David Cassidy, or poor old Donny Osmond, or the recently defrosted Justin Bieber, Williams provided a berth for a largely female and almost exclusively teenage groundswell of sexual desire.

Peddling a dimpled, cheeky-chappie persona and often photographed in not much more than a promise of leatherette and a litre of tattoo ink, Williams, as has been much documented, was a prepubescent fantasy come to life.

The man spawned so much merchandising he could have given Barbie a run for her money.

Anyway, at some stage he must have got overwhelmed with the stench of pheromones, and, instead of tucking himself up in his sock drawer with a cup of cocoa and a copy of UFO Magazine (yep, Williams is an alien enthusiast), he started hanging with rock'n'rollers and possibly even found himself taking drugs in muddy fields. His boyband mates then got their disco pants in a knot, and Williams left the band. The cheap mascara running off the faces of his devastated followers could have dyed the oceans smudge-proof black.

Dance away the pain

So who now gives an unidentified flying toss? Williams, who rejoined Take That just around the time the members were having their prostates checked and thinking about investing in bifocals, is pretty and rich and probably perfectly harmless, although possibly not quite as riveting as a close encounter in a crop circle.

The only reason I bring the lad up is that a couple of weeks ago, his wife, Ayda, an actor and singer and knitter of little hats for extraterrestrials (okay, that’s a downright lie) gave birth to the couple’s second child.

That in itself is not particularly remarkable. However, during the 24-hour labour, which is rumoured to have taken place in California (also a popular spot for flying saucers), Williams made a video diary that he tweeted to his legions of admirers. The “sharing” of his wife’s “birthing experience” was apparently inspired by the sight of Ayda tottering around the labour ward in a pair of perilously elegant and bejewelled Louboutin high heels.

“When Ayda goes into labour, she comes out correct,” wrote Williams.

I have absolutely no idea what that sentence means, finding the grammar as baffling as the sentiment. I assume Williams is expressing pride in his wife’s choice of labour-room attire. Look, I’m no one to talk, as I’ve said before: I looked like a Teletubby when I went into labour, and at one stage the midwife had to cut open the arms of my ugly nightdress with a surgical scissors because I was expanding by the minute like well-proved dough.

Ayda, however, looked very nice in the birthing snaps. Seemingly untrammelled by apprehension or exhaustion, she is shown in one of them “dancing for her husband”, which apparently “helped her take her mind off the pain”.

Well, we’ve all been there with our partners, haven’t we? “Darling, I’m being pulled asunder by two raging bulls. Let me dance for you to take my mind off the discomfort.”

My father, a cartoonist, was not a man blessed with commercial nous. Shortly before he died, however, he urged anyone who would listen to invest in snow tyres. “Snow tyres; stockpile snow tyres,” he gasped, clutching at our coat-tails with his yellow fingers.

We ignored him, of course. But I often think that maybe he was right and that snow-tyre sales might well eclipse newspaper revenue in the years to come.

So here’s my advice for the entrepreneurially minded: birthing wear. Bejewelled and sexy and skittish and cool. After all, Williams’s fans are all grown-up now, and are no doubt producing plenty of their own little Robbies. Labour-room loveliness will be the next big thang. Maternity makeovers, post-partum party frocks, Caesarean chic, epidural elegance; there’s a whole industry out there. And let’s not forget hair and nails and, of course, a photoshoot featuring the glistening new arrival in the muscular, tattooed arms of the birthing partner, whoever he or she may be.