Sir, - My mind boggled as I read my copy of the Waterford Wedgwood Group's Interim Review 1999, not due to the information it contained, but because I could not fathom why it included an illustration which I consider degrades women, as well as others of fashion models which had no relevance to the subject matter.
The full-page photograph accompanying a report on the group's porcelain is of a scantily clad young woman with a stud in her navel, holding an inverted cup over each of her breasts. Does the board of directors of Waterford Wedgwood believe that it will enhance the group's image and increase its sales by displaying its wares on the bare breasts of a woman, or was this review prepared with a particular type of shareholder in mind - namely, overweight felines with prurient tendencies?
Would the board consider it appropriate to include in its annual report for 1999 a full-page photograph of a scantily clad young man with a stud in his navel, holding a porcelain cup or perhaps a sample of another of the group's brands, a saucepan, over a part of his body? I think not. - Yours, etc.,
Brenda Wheeler, Rathfarnham, Dublin 14.