It was a quiet night. I was resting on the sofa, idly hitting the refresh button on Facebook.

Sometimes in the quiet hours you witness it: the birth of a social media trend.

This time that trend was Madonna. Everyone was posting comments about the singer and I knew immediately that something had gone terribly wrong.

I turned to Twitter: hashtag Madonna.

Videos were appearing. Snide comments about cloaks and witches.

I headed to YouTube. Ah. Now I could see what the fuss was about: during a set piece for the Brit Awards, Madonna was unceremoniously yanked off stage due to a wardrobe malfunction.

She took quite a tumble. Many Tweeters commented that for most 56-year-olds that fall would spell a hip replacement. How many of your grandparents – they tweeted – could take that fall and recover like a 20-something?

Madonna is not your average 56-year-old, that much is true. Happily, the song she was performing – as she was pulled from her pedestal – was I’m Going to Carry On.

Which is exactly what she did.

Lucky for Madonna, the next morning a new social media trend was lighting up our airways, and this one is actually worth shouting about: Greg Wise and Emma Thompson have apparently declared that they’re prepared to do prison time for declining to pay their taxes until the HSBC tax dodgers are held accountable.

The Eye of the People was easily turned to supporting such a stand. Proof, perhaps, that we may like to see show-offs yanked on to their bums... but we’d much rather see rich bums brought to their repentant knees.