Those of you who’ve seen my blogs on Ryanair’s annual charity calendar, which feature female staff posing in skimpy bikinis, will know that, for me, this is little more than a cheap bid by Chief Executive Officer Michael O’Leary to boost his company’s profits. He claims that the main purpose of these calendars is to raise money for organisations such as KIDS in the UK and Tafel in Germany. But if this is true then why, I ask myself, the need for girls in bikinis?
In the wake of the launch of Ryanair’s 2011 edition of the calendar, I suggested to Mr. O’Leary that it might be more appropriate next time round if he, rather than his cabin staff, dressed up in next to nothing and took part in a sexy beach photo shoot.
He has so far declined to comment. However, later this morning I will have the chance to speak to Michael O’Leary directly. BBC Radio 4’s Women Hour will be hosting a debate between me and O’Leary, which means that for the first time I’ll be able to challenge his response to my comments that his charity calendars are sexualising the airline industry. O’Leary, who has never had a particularly profound way with words, dubbed me ‘anti-fun’ when my comments first hit the press two years ago.
You can listen to this debate here live at 10am.
You really don’t get it, do you, Miss Honeyballs ? Such a sweetie. Why did Labour lose the election ? Such a mystery.
“But if this is true then why, I ask myself, the need for girls in bikinis?”
Because people aren’t going to buy calendars of fully clothed women. Never have done, never will.
Am I wrong to try and explain this? You seem to have so much trouble with the euro…
O’Leary 1, Honeyballs 0.
You actually think that your performance on Woman’s Hour enhanced your argument today?
The message that came across clearly was ‘clearly out of touch and unwilling to listen’.
Sorry Mary, sounds to me like you want to give women every right, except the right to choose for ourselves. You’ve got your facts wrong just about everywhere on this calendar. Explain why, if women are so offended and oppressed, so many volunteered to be in it? Why would Ryanair, which makes huge profits, need a calendar to chip in a couple of hundred grand? Please get your feminist head out of the sand and do your homework, because you’re not doing us any favours.
Clearly in Ms. Honeyballs world, these girls are O’Leary sex-slaves, languishing in a dungeon somewhere under Dublin Airport, brought up only for a spot of publicity-induced degeneration.
Jesus wept, is this what our politicions now deem worthy of getting up in the morning for?