RYANAIR’S CHIEF O’LEARY PROVES HIMSELF A SUCKER FOR PUBLICITY
RYANAIR boss Michael O’Leary isn’t exactly renowned for taking criticism lying down, so the BBC’s Panorama programme will probably have seen yesterday’s tirade coming.
After Monday evening’s programme on the airline, Ryanair unleashed a campaign to maximise publicity from the episode – offering 1.1m free flights, labelling the show a “hatchet job” and slamming 11 “false or misleading” claims made by the Beeb’s team.
Not that O’Leary seems too bothered by the whole affair, mind – thanking the broadcaster for a “wonderful PR opportunity” at a hastily-arranged press conference yesterday and taking the opportunity to set the record straight about how he views his own character.
“Panorama claimed that ‘O’Leary is a bully’,” the airline informed us.
“This is clearly false when the whole world knows that O’Leary is a kind and gentle, caring and thoughtful, sensitive and saintly human being…”
Who just happens to be a multi-millionaire who has made it big in the hard-nosed, ruthless world of aviation, right? Pull the other one, old chap.
jailhouse rock
The $65bn Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff really is determined to keep himself in the headlines, despite being locked up behind bars.
Just weeks after being hospitalised with concussion, a broken nose and two black eyes after a brawl with a fellow inmate in his previous jail, Madoff is now causing a bit of a furore in his new prison digs in the centre of Houston, Texas.
The swindling septuagenarian was overheard arguing with another elderly prisoner over the state of the financial markets, of all things – and when the rival pushed him roughly, Madoff is understood to have shoved back even harder, causing him to fall over and then standing over him “red-faced and glaring”.
Looks like the jailbird lifestyle is toughening up our white-collar criminal a treat.
EGO BOOST
Nominations are now open for the public to vote for their business leader of the year, before the winner is announced at the Orange National Business Awards on 10 November.
In the fray as nominees are Kingfisher boss Ian Cheshire, Big Issue founder John Bird, Pearson Group chief executive Dame Marjorie Scardino, Co-op chief Peter Marks and Sir William Sargent, top dog at digital imaging firm Framestore, which provides animation for major Hollywood studios, among others.
Glitzy, you might think, though The Capitalist was astonished, on listening to a short video interview with Sargent on the awards website, that he appears to have the smallest ego of anyone in the business world.
When asked why he thought he should win the trophy, Sargent muttered: “The answer is that I don’t think I should… I have no idea who the other nominees are but I can guarantee you they will be more substantial. I got a knighthood last year and I found that deeply psychologically troubling…”
Someone get that man on a self-help course, pronto.
STAR STATUS
Something quite bizarre seems to have taken place at trucker breakfast favourite Little Chef. After falling into administration in January 2007, the chain has been enjoying something of a revival – not least because of its association with celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal, who appeared on a Channel 4 programme along with Little Chef chief Ian Pegler, demonstrating a new improved menu for the restaurants.
Little Chef Popham – the first location to benefit from the revamped Blumenthal menu – is now in the Good Food Guide, while the company informs me that it expects profits of £3m for the year to end of December, on a turnover of £77m. Wonders will never cease.
BOTTOMS UP
As the City splits itself into different camps on whether we’re in a V-, U- or W-shaped recession, fine wine buyers seem to have firmly aligned themselves with the first theory.
September’s vino markets saw the main indices – the Live-ex 100 and the Liv-ex Claret Chip – rise two per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively, with Chateau Lafite 2004 and Chateau Margaux 1990 among the biggest gainers.
According to the Wine Investment Fund, demand is predictably strongest in Asia – where a six-litre bottle of Chateau Petrus 1982 recently sold for an eye-watering £60,000 at a Hong Kong auction.
Who said the days of the big spenders were over?
FESTIVE CHEER
And finally, a good four months after the eager high street stores first started showing their Christmas collections, a sign that the festive season proper is almost upon us.
An eagle-eyed chum emails to report back on the first sighting of Christmas fairylights, festooning a tree outside a house just to the south of the river Thames.
Can’t these people give us all a bit of a break?