The outspoken pub boss Tim Martin yesterday showed that it is possible to keep sales rising, even in the face of a tax and regulatory burden he regards as unfair.

The size of the tax burden imposed on Britain's pubs was laid bare yesterday in half-year results from JD Wetherspoon.

Informality can be disarming, especially when you are a man who carries his laptop, books and lunch around in a straining supermarket carrier bag. Some can rely on their looks to make an impression but the rest of us need something else.

Who knew that one of George Orwell's legacies to British culture is the JD Wetherspoon pub chain? Among the countless millions inspired by his work was Tim Martin, who was a young entrepreneur in 1976 when he read an Orwell article in the Evening Standard from 40 years earlier describing his perfect pub – free of music so that the customers could talk freely, selling cheap and nutritious food, serving its draught beer in pewter tankards, and where the friendly barmaids know your name (and they're always glad you came).

JD Wetherspoon founder Tim Martin marked his company's 20 years as a listed company today by opening trading on the London Stock Exchange.

Children's meals at some of the UK's leading pub and fast food chains contain more salt than they should eat in an entire day, a study has found.

Outlook Tim Martin was banging on about the same old thing yesterday. He's perfectly entitled, since he's right.

Food companies have failed to commit to healthy eating scheme, claims Which?

There's a bit more cheer than usual down at JD Wetherspoon. The pub chain has just settled a long-running fraud case against property agent Paul Ferrari.

A 64-year-old man died after he and his wife were tied up with tape and threatened with a gun during a burglary at their bungalow.

Given the overall state of the economy, pub chains generally are so far reporting reasonable results, and that includes JD Wetherspoon, which said yesterday that sales rose by almost 10 per cent last year, with a rise of 3.6 per cent in the three months to 15 January. But that does not mean that Wetherspoon's chairman, Tim Martin, does not have a point when he complains about the disparity between prices in supermarkets and prices in pubs.

The man with the mullet?