Incidents like the #EssexLion bring out the best in Twitter

I've been laughing at all the suggestions on Twitter that the cast of The Only Way Is Essex should be used as bait to help recapture the animal.
And of course the Tweets saying that it's really only a snow leopard with a fake tan and hair extensions.
Other amusing Tweets:

Dear Police Marksmen, Orange faces, extensions, pouting lips and long eyelashes is not always the #essexlion THINK BEFORE YOU SHOOT!

This is getting interesting. The Essex Lion has just taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy #essexlion

#EssexLion will be several shades darker than most lions, French manicured claws and a taste for WKD

The temptation for the residents of Essex to sing the lion sleeps tonight is only a whim away. #essexlion

Text from Prince Harry "You know that lion I won in Vegas,well..........."#essexlion

There was also an assumption that, because the police have set up road blocks the lion must be driving a Ford Escort.

The Mail Online has also (unusually) been amusing me. It reported a supposed witness who said:

I was in my car as I had just gone to get some petrol when I saw it in the field next to the road. It was ambling laconically along by the lake in the field, like it didn’t have a care in the world.

I love the use of the adverb laconically to describe something you might do by a lake and the (presumably) unintentional alliteration.
And this in the comments section:

As an Essex resident, I am offended by the constant inferences that people from Essex are shallow and stupid. Essex is a large county geographically and this lion sighting is approximately and hour and a half away from the location where TOWIE is filmed. It is my view that the stupidity here largely lies with the people who think a scripted show is an accurate portrayal of reality, and think this justifies them in making sweeping assumptions about every resident of an entire county.- Michelle, Essex

No of course Essex folk are not stupid! They just don't know the difference between an inference and an implication.
But this witness quote proves that it's really all nonsense:

I was sitting with my wife in the front room playing backgammon at around 10pm when I heard this very loud roar.

Because surely nobody in Essex plays backgammon?

And that's the funniest thing about the whole episode. Because, in spite of all the melodrama on Twitter and the news media and the three @EssexLion Twitter accounts that have appeared, it will surely all prove to be a mixture of wind up and hot air.