[Scarlett.]

Robbie Williams's strike is over. The pop singer has set aside his grudges and packed his mining pick - sorry, microphone - and will be returning to the hard slog of singing for millions of adoring fans.

Though it was never officially confirmed, Williams had for months been understood to be striking for music-making, turning his nose up at Guy Hands and the new management at EMI. But according to Williams's manager, Tim Clark, the singer has been writing songs for some time and may release an album next year.

"I would certainly hope that a new album will be coming next year," Clark told BBC Newsbeat this week. "There are never any guarantees but that's what we would hope."

"I was with Robbie last week. He was at home and he was writing songs and he played some of them to us ... We heard some wonderful stuff."

While some of us had imagined Williams in a dark, run-down flat, firing gunshots at a Guy Hands poster and scribbling anti-EMI diatribes all over the walls, Clark painted a different picture. "He's in very fine spirits, in very fine form and I think what he's doing sounds really wonderful," he said.

And although the songs may turn out to be vitriolic hate-letters to studio suits, they will most certainly not be about extra-terrestrials. Clark dismissed rumours that Williams's interest in aliens had trickled down to the songwriting process. "It's been pretty much exaggerated in the press, as if that is anything new," he said