The UK celebration of the defeat-of-freedom-fighters festival (sort of) known as Guy Fawkes Day has been and gone. With it of course comes plenty of fireworks action. And with that of course comes plenty of horrific injuries - [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5] are just a few examples.

However, the award for the best injury of the day is at present, narrowly missed out on by a blown-up partridge, is awarded to a 22-year old man who managed to incur the wrath of the firework gods to the extent he suffered from a scorched colon.

The man, formerly thought sane-of-mind as far as the Poorhouse is aware, crouched down on all fours and affixed a Black Cat Thunderbolt rocket to his very own rear end. He then lit it, and whilst being phone-videoed by his friends, waited for great Jackass-esque hilarity to ensure.

It didn't. To understand what happened next, let's talk to Douglas McDougal, of the Ambulance Service:

We received a call stating there was a male who had a firework in his bottom and it was bleeding… He sustained fairly significant injuries in the fact that there's huge damage to that particular area.

Luckily, the stupid bloke (who formerly was part of the UK's military effort in Iraq - whether his expertise was explosives is unknown, but if so it might explain a few of the thousands of blown up Iraqi civilian innocents) somehow did not die or even get a rabid anal infection. But one fart, and that might have been it. In the words of McDougal again:

also the body naturally produces methane gas, so combine that with the firework and the exploding effect with methane's flammability - it certainly could have been a lot worse than it really was.

The man in question there was however not the only guy to get into trouble with his bottom in recent times though though. Here, methane did indeed play a sizable part. Hubert Hoffman was arrested for something-or-other as part of a routine check in Poland. Feeling highly mistreated, he complained their President and his family had turned Poland into a dictatorship. The police weren't so happy with this display of non-patriotism and told him to show some respect.

Rather than do so, instead Hubert let rip with a loud, explosive fart. In an event slightly state-repressionistically reminiscent of the time an 82-year old man was physically ejected and charged under the Terrorism Act for saying "Nonsense" when demon headmaster Jack Straw was talking during a Labour Party Conference, this resulted in a further arrest - the particular offence being "contempt for the office of the head of state".

He made bail, but then skipped out on it. The court wherein he should have been answering these charges against inappropriate bodily functions got a little tetchy, and now a nationwide manhunt has been started for the afore-mentioned offender. Interpol have apparently, genuinely, been alerted.

(Credits go to Kat for the first, and Ben for the second bottom related news snippets)