Trashing a cat may have been a moment of madness for Mary Bale a 45-year-old bank employee from the Midlands, England, however, it assured her of her Andy Warhol 15 minutes of fame. Indeed within 24 hours she had a following of over 20,000.

Rather like ‘Where were you when JFK was shot’? or ‘Where were you when Elvis died?’ I was in England when this story broke. Well, thought I, obviously nothing of epic proportions happening worldwide, no markets crashing, no tsunamis, no Cameron baby yet, tho’ imminent – we had a to wait a couple of days for that baby to ‘pop’ out. An unusual description given that it was a caesarean delivery. No mention of the words ‘designer baby’ anywhere in the reports. Such is political spin. So Nick Clegg is left in government holding the baby, whilst David Cameron is on holiday, also holding the baby.

But I digress.

Back to CatBinLady. For those of you who missed this earth shattering news item and therefore haven’t been tempted to view all the subsequent spoofs on Youtube, it is an everyday tale of folk ‘oop north’.

Lady walking along a road, stops to stroke a cat, forgets she belongs to a nation of animal lovers and promptly places furry friend in green wheelie bin. What she hadn’t realised, is that she is also living in a Big Brother state ( no not the cringeworthy TV programme), but Mary Bale’s dastardly deed was captured on CCTV.

I can understand you throwing a tortoise in the bin, I have one and it could be mistaken for a stone and bundled into the bin with a load of garden rubbish. But you would not stroke it first, tortoises are singularly unsuited to stroking.

To compound this outrage, certainly at a personal level, was the news that the cat is called Lola. Shock! Horror! My cat, currently on holiday with Anna, is called Lola. To the best of my knowledge, Anna has not been tempted to put pussy in the poubelle... yet.

CatBinLady is now a micro-celebrity, Facebookers and Twitters ( please note, I’m using the polite appellation here) are all agog. A ‘hate’ campaign is up and running, the global village is alerted to the odd antics of this middle-aged woman.

What caused such aberrant behaviour? The suggestion is menopause, which I agree covers and excuses a multitude of odd females of a certain age behaviour, but I put my money on her losing the plot because she lives in Stoke. Now I’ve been to Stoke, lived near the place for a few years and I strongly suggest it is reason enough to not only drive a person over the edge, but to put a cat in the bin. Not only the cat, I’m surprised Mary Bale didn’t throw herself in too. Indeed, you could throw the whole of Stoke (including Robbie Williams) in a giant bin and you’d be doing the world a favour.

Having mentioned an equally unmemorable news item last month, that of Victoria Beckham’s cold sore (again Shock! Horror!) and my corresponding one, I am now starting to feel with the coincidence of cat’s name that I am living in some parallel universe.

Whatever next, dear Reader?

PS: Note from the Editor.

I, Anna Fill, Editor of The Riviera Woman can cat-egorically state that Lola is safe and well and has never seen the inside of a poubelle (bin... for those unaware of the lingo). This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. See the photo below!