Mr Philpott said his friend left the house at 12:45 BST on 11 May, and he and his wife were sleeping naked in their conservatory when a fire alarm woke them.

BBC: Derby fire deaths: Mick Philpott 'ashamed' of threesome

But Byrne simultaneously has been trying to light a fire about a controversial phenomenon in trading known as naked short-selling, and his soapbox may have become bigger this week.

FORBES: Naked Shorts Seeking Cover

Only yesterday he had kicked in a door at the top of a dark staircase, knocked an attacker to the floor, kicked him in the stomach, crunched his teeth one by one and then allowed a beautiful brunette, naked under an evening gown, to leave unmolested by the fire escape.

ECONOMIST: Robert Brooks and Mickey Spillane

In the cottage downstairs there was only one room, with a kitchen at one end and a sitting room at the other, a flagged floor and a wood fire smoldering in a wide stone hearth, one wall stripped back to the naked stone.

NEWYORKER: She��s the One

They are said to strip themselves naked and dance feverishly in the slums or at the edges of the villages, their mouths filled with fire.

ECONOMIST: The operatic intensity of streetdancing