As Reader's Digest always said "Laughter, the best Medicine!". We should all thank Mr Tuppen for giving us all a belly laugh! "Everyone in the world knows what it is, yet it’s not standardised" Two things: 1) No They Don't and 2) This exactly decribes the difference between a tie and a franchise.

What's great about Ted, ironically considering the behaviour of his Company, is that he's so incredibly transparent. Mr Tuppen wears his heart on his sleeve and can be read like a book.

Known within the industry for being brusque and blunt to say the least, to the outside world he takes care to sound like a concerned, wise but stern uncle. Interviews with Ted sound express some inner hurt about whatever situation has forced him, reluctantly despite his demure, self effacing manner, into the limelight be it radio, television or to front it out with government scrutineers such as the Business Enterprise Committee. "I have to come here to explain to everyone just how little the people who pay my shareholders' dividends - the publicans - know about the business they are in"... What they don't understand is that the reason their businesses are failing has nothing to do with how much rent they pay or how much we charge for their beer, it's because they are no good at their jobs. If our demands for ever increasing share of their profits puts them out of business, it's not our fault - it's theirs for running their business so badly." We're just a boring stable company prudently regarding itself as a householder with a 100K easy repayment mortgage and a conservative outlook on exposure to risk.

Brusque Ted let it slip to financial journalists that he thinks MPs are morons; demure Ted did a cap in hand 'I actually, really, honestly think MPs work very hard' act to the very people he was referring to earlier.

In this article Ted implies that food has expanded in the pub trade due to the benefits of the tie: "It’s very exciting when you see people get it right.” Yes. From the rentalisation of goodwill point of view it must be very exciting.

The latest ruse in the pro pub co ranks is hyperbole about the tie being a franchise: "it is the best unbranded franchise in the world" says Ted. Oh Joy! Hold the laughter if you can. Where in your contracts Ted - your leases - is the word 'FRANCHISE'? Ted's convenient analogy leads people to believe there are benefits to the tie akin to those of a franchise. There are none.

“An awful lot of what is said about the tie is deliberately misleading,” he said... "campaigners all talk about how much more they have to pay for their beer and fail to mention they are paying substantially less for their rent".

'He scoffs at the idea that the arrangement is somehow inequitable'. SO, tied lessees pay substantially less for their rent than those free of tie? PROVE IT Mr Tuppen. Prove that the tied tenant is no worse off financially than if they were free of tie.