Fat Cat Tuesday: Twitter users bombard social media with photos of their overweight pets

Britain's fat cats flooded our social media feeds on the day that calculations were made by the High Pay Centre, stating that by the end of the first Tuesday in January in 2016 (5 January), Britain's Fat Cat bosses will have earned more money than the average worker will earn in a whole year. The claim made by the "independent non-party think tank" was based on the salary of an average FTSE 100 chief executive, who earns roughly £5m a year, compared with the median UK salary of £27,645.

The calculations show that earnings for company executives returning to work in the New Year will pass the UK average salary by late afternoon on "Fat Cat Tuesday". The High Pay Centre's estimations are based on the chief executive working a 12-hour day, taking few holidays, which gives them an average hourly pay of £1,260 an hour.

Naturally, the British public have used this as an excuse to post even more pictures of cats on social media, mainly Twitter, using the tagline #FatCatTuesday. So while the high-earning "Fat Cats" count their coins, Twitter users from across the UK are taking the term in a more literal sense, and have been bombarding the social media site with photographs, GIFS and videos of their cats, looking fat.