No one should really have been surprised at the audacity of the bid by the parvenu Ryanair for the Irish national carrier Aer Lingus this week. Audacious is what Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, specialises in. After all, this is the chap who recently bought a hackney plate for his Mercedes - and had a meter installed in it to classify it as a taxi - so he could legally zip down Dublin's bus lanes and speed his progress around the city.