Michael O'Leary had that look on his face. The one where he appears to have a bad smell lingering around the end of his nose.


His horse, War of Attrition, had run a spectacular race at Punchestown. It was a day of celebration. He should have been feeling magnanimous. He wasn't.


"I'm not paying for a holiday for someone who bought a Ryanair ticket for €10," he told reporters. It just wasn't "fair".


O'Leary was going to break the European law that says airline owners have a duty of care to stranded passengers. He'd see those spongers in court. Here he was, working his racehorse's legs to the bone, while they were sipping Slippery Nipples in Santa bleedin' Ponsa – at his expense. The man of the people would take on the people. Now pour the Krug and stop hogging the foie gras.


O'Leary sees villains and idiots everywhere. If it's not freeloading passengers he has to contend with, it's stupid airspace regulators. He believes the latter's blanket-ban on flying was an over-reaction. Was it really? Is O'Leary an expert on volcanology?


It had been a week of over-reactions. There was the traditional 'Irish' over-reaction, where we went looking for someone to blame. In Ireland, there's no such thing as a culprit-less crime. If an earthquake opened a chasm in O'Connell Street, we'd all be on to Liveline blaming the Corpo. "Nearly fell into it, Joe. Disgraceful."


Last week, stranded callers struggled with not having any heads to roll.


"Joe?"


"Go ahead, Mary in Santa Ponnnnsaaa. You're on the LAVA-Line…"


"I'm going to sue that bleedin' volcano, Joe…"


Even singer Tony Kenny phoned the LavaLine with a tale of woe. Tony and half of Ireland's showbanders were stranded in a Ford Transit somewhere in Europe. Quick, I thought, let's seal the borders before they get back.


It struck me that I'd heard this LavaLine conversation, in reverse, a month ago. It was during the passports fiasco. People had waited weeks to get passports and now had to wait a week to get home.


That's Ireland for you: you can't get out of it quick enough – and you can't get back into it quick enough.


There was the inevitable media over-reaction too. Sky News had me believing fall-out was on the way. "The ash is descending. If you get runny eyes – go back indoors immediately." Is that ash on your collar? Please, God, NO! It was akin to the bird flu scare advice: "if you see a swan sneezing or a chicken with a Kleenex, DO NOT APPROACH IT".


While we were phoning Joe and Sky was sounding the air raid sirens, Europe was continuing to over-react in a way that actually helped matters. Airspace regulators had seen a huge cloud of ash and didn't know what to do. Rather than take any chances, they stopped us flying. It was a nuisance, but better to over-react while working out what to do in future, than under-react.


O'Leary, unlike the regulators, has a woeful track record at judging crises. His reaction to swine flu was to tell us to stop whingeing and take "a couple of Strepsils". Strepsils weren't much use to the people that died.


His talk of disproportion is a bit rich, considering his airline will stop you flying if you're 20 seconds late at check-in. Hand luggage slightly too big for the measuring frame? Can't fly. Wrong ID with you? Can't fly. Now he's getting a taste of his own gamesmanship. The rules may be disproportionate and unfair – like Ryanair's – but they're still the rules. They're OUR rules – and that must really hurt.


O'Leary blames the EU, the regulators and his passengers for shafting him. He even blames God. O'Leary discommoded by an act of God? Who's this 'God', anyway?


He's pursuing that great tradition of looking for culprits when there are none. Instead of whingeing and threatening stranded passengers with court, why doesn't he bully the companies whose insurance he sells into sharing some of the burden?


O'Leary thought that by breaking the law he could bully stranded, and in some cases broke, passengers into the Hobson's choice of suing or taking the financial hit. This backfired when the regulators smacked him and he had to back down. It was gratifying to see. For once, officialdom stopped the Great Unwashed being trampled on by the elite. For now, at any rate.


O'Leary will get us back, you know. The phrase 'reasonable expenses' is a bit arbitrary. This is a man who wants to charge you to go for a leak, after all. He'll dream up some way of getting that money back. He may charge a Getting Off The Plane Tax (€200). Or start selling Volcano Value Packs (contains parachute and map to the ground).


He probably started angrily dreaming up ways of getting even after he'd finished celebrating at Punchestown. Right after he'd ordered that bottle of Krug.


Last week, as the banks crisis continued to rack us, and Seanie and Fingleton continued to enjoy themselves while we counted coppers, as life seemed so bloody unfair, we finally had a reason to laugh. So thanks, Mick. I'd like to see a picture of O'Leary with his horse today. Just to check which one has the longer face.


dkenny@tribune.ie