Why Easyjet suddenly looks quite classy

Millions of years ago deep in the deepest bowels of Hell, a single drop of sweat fell from Satan's scrotum and landed on the ground. A small dying maggot lapped at the tiny bead of sweat and found sustenance in it. He grew and grew, living off the scum that lived on the scum that fed on the groins of the demons, and eventually he became more powerful and more evil than even the most powerful in Hell. Seeing this, Satan said unto his minions,

"Let us send this foul creature forth onto the earth to take human form, for he giveth us a bad name and maketh us look, like, well evil innit."

And so it was done. The creature was planted in the womb of a woman in rural Ireland. He was carried forth into the world and christened... Michael O'Leary.

Michael led an inconspicuous childhood, biding his time in order to find favour amongst the people of the world before raining down evil upon them. He did well at school and university and set his mind to devising a plan for the ruination of mankind.

"Perhaps I should go into politics," he thought to himself. But he realised no one would ever vote for him.

"Perhaps I could become a celebrity". But no, for he was too ugly for that.

"I must go into business," he concluded, "and there I shall find a way to inflict misery upon MILLIONS!"

Michael knew that he would need to choose an industry which was used by the masses, and not an exclusive market. To have the maximum impact he should choose a multinational company, not just consigning himself to the British Isles. And if he were to have a really malign influence, he realised, he should choose something people relied on for both business and leisure, preferably something where he could ruin their holidays and add stress to what could otherwise be an enjoyable experience. And so it was that Michael Satanuscrotum O'Leary became the Chief Executive Officer of budget airline Ryanair.

He immediately set to work making things as unpleasant as possible for the unsuspecting customers of the airline.

"We shall lure them in with cheap fares," he told his executive board, "and then, when they've booked, we shall hit them with exorbitant fees for ridiculous things like not printing their own boarding passes three years in advance on aardvark skin. Or wanting to take a suitcase."

"But Mr O'Leary," one of the board members offered tremulously, "when the customers notice they're being swindled, won't they just... go elsewhere?"

"HOW DARE YOU CHALLENGE MY AUTHORITY?!," boomed Michael, menacingly, and then he did that ejector chair thing Dr Evil does in Austin Powers, tipping him into a pit of fire.

"IGNORANT FOOL!" he spat, addressing the rest of the board. "Doesn't he realise there will be no competition, for we shall fly to places no other airlines would ever serve, like Perugia and Malmö. Places where there would be no tourists if it weren't for our planes."

"Like Stansted?" asked another member of the board.

"Exactly," said O'Leary, "But we shall call it ‘London Stansted’ so people think it's in London."

"I'm not dead," cried the man from the pit, "I'm just very badly burned."

Meanwhile a hapless innocent young man - let us call him Jamuel Sones - was booking a holiday to Italy. Since there were few options he booked a flight with Ryanair.

"At least it's cheap," he thought.

Jamuel was an intelligent boy (not to mention witty and extremely handsome) so he knew how to avoid the pitfalls of booking (he was, after all, a regular listener to Radio 4's daytime consumer programme You and Yours, and he sat next to someone at work who used to work on Don't Get Done, Get Dom). He was clever enough to remember to pay with a debit card, check in online, and add a cabin bag to his booking so as to be able to carry his many stripy T-shirts. The entire process took little more than six hours on the Ryanair website.

Weeks later Jamuel was at the airport in Perugia checking in for his return flight after a delightful holiday consisting almost entirely of eating things with cheese on. But unbeknown to him Michael O'Leary had been remotely logged in to Jamuel's account when he booked and had slyly unticked the 'add checked baggage' box on his form at some point during the booking ordeal (a common tactic of O'Leary's). And so it fell to a woman at the check in desk who looked like an Italian Kathy Burke to tell Jamuel that, despite his best efforts, he had in fact not booked his luggage for the return journey at all and that he must pay a fine of €100 for his error.

"But Kathio Burkio," Jamuel pleaded, "that's more than the cost of the original flight. Surely there must be some way you can override this fee, for surely you can see that I intended to book the luggage in for my return journey - otherwise I would have had to dump my many stripy T-shirts and bottles of John Frieda Frizz Ease Shampoo (which you must know costs more per millilitre than liquid gold) here in Perugia."

But Kathio Burkio only stared him down. "Do you know what Michael O'Leary does to employees who give his customers the benefit of the doubt and treat them like valued patrons?"

And Jamuel saw the fear in her eyes and relented.

And so Michael O'Leary grew richer and richer and eventually took over the entire world. He turned it into a great blue and yellow fuselage with no legroom and gaudy adverts for nasty white bread sandwiches. He made all the women wear blue nylon jackets and too much make up and all the men had to act really camp and offer people duty free every ten minutes. It was a cruel and horrible world and everybody in it hated the evil Michael O'Leary. But they couldn’t overthrow him because they’d disposed of all their sharp implements at security and they were slowly dying of thirst. And the poor penniless prophet Jamuel was distantly remembered – mainly through the wisdom in the writings of his celebrated blog – as the true, heroic martyr he was. And the man who had dared to challenge Michael O'Leary remained in the fiery pit, not dead, but very badly burned.