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Back in the old days, when people saw something like the above, they called the fire brigade. Unless they realised it wasn’t actually a fire at all, in which case they probably wouldn’t make a big deal about it.

These days, people immediately take a photo and stick it up on Twitter with the comment “Oooh fire”. And, unsurprisingly, people soon assume that it must be a real fire, rather than a pyrotechnic rehearsal for an upcoming Muse gig. Within minutes ‘Ricoh Arena’ is trending before anyone has bothered to, you know, alert the emergency services or something.

Eventually West Midlands Fire Service was alerted by “a member of the media”, but confirmed no emergency calls had been made despite hundreds of people retweeting the picture. Which almost makes you wish it had been a real fire. Not so much because it would have meant Muse being consumed by raging flames, just to drive home to people that the first thing they should do when they see a burning building is call 999, rather than log in to bloody Twitter…