Strangely enough, the first thing I thought was, "Are they seriously discussing this woman's body while she's standing right there?" And, what is the context of the encounter? Did the woman in the bikini just approach them and strike a pose? Is she a friend of theirs? A cardboard standee? Why are they wearing church clothes on the beach? It's pretty overcast for so many people to be there. He;p!

Andy Capp is now doing ads?

http://www.stripcartoons.com/cappsquare5.jpg

Goodness, this is awful. It's a good example of how prejudice (sizism, in this case) is made to seem 'acceptable' when framed in the context of humour.

Why, may I ask, are they wearing high heels at the beach?

Looks like a Donald McGill postcard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_McGill

George Orwell wrote a classic essay about him:
http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Art_of_Donald_McGill/0.html

Yes...all women must be thin and gorgeous. You have to, to impress all the fat unhappily married older men!

Plus, double standards: The joke is on the supposed wife - her husband's size doesn't seem that much different, yet *he* can afford to crack jokes on her cost.

"Oh, this ad isn't sexist!" I'm sure its creators would say. "It's like all ironical and stuff, we are commenting on older sexist attitudes etc." The "vintage" aspect of it allows them to distance themselves from the content. If the characters portrayed had been real actors photographed, you wouldn't have that extra layer between viewer and picture.

I'm not excusing this postcard in any way, but readers should be aware that Virgin have probably done this to tie in with a current exhibition of British art called "Rude Britannia: British Comic Art" currently showing at the Tate which features several images such as these.

link is probably NSFW
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/britishcomicart/

I would suppose that Virgin are using this image as Donald McGill's profile has been raised recently following the reviews of the exhibition in the UK media.