Hedgehog
Meet the odd couple camping out to be first at Margaret Thatcher's funeral
It’s a romantic, tragic story: a man and a woman united by marriage and death. Not their own. Or even their families’. Margaret Kittle and John Loughrey, the first two people to wait outside St Paul’s Cathedral for Baroness Thatcher’s funeral tomorrow, meet as spectators at each British state occasion, Margaret coming from Canada, John from Wandsworth
Every little helps: new Donate scheme makes charitable giving and Gift Aid easier
The National Funding Scheme is aiming to capture people at 'the moment of maximum emotion', when they've just left a thrilling performance or an inspiring exhibition, and allow them to easily convert that emotion into a donation
Mark Birley Sotheby's sale offers objects from a life well-lived
The sale tomorrow has 500 lots, each imbued with the Birley mystique, which is likely to make it a success
Champagne sales hardly sparkling in 2012
The total number of bottles consumed worldwide fell 4 per cent to 308 million, from 323 million in 2011
Richard Long brings Land Art to the Whitworth
What results is seemingly (indeed partly) random and carefree, but also intensely designed, natural and unnatural
Raqib Shaw Ra-jazzles the Manchester Art Gallery with La Nuit d'Amour
Why settle for beautiful enamel flower petals or beasts when you can gild the lily (a much better title for the show, incidentally)?
Director Noah Horowitz on The Armory Show's Centenary(ish)
Josh Spero meets Armory Show director Noah Horowitz over an awkward Coca-Cola to discuss what the fair can learn from its era-defining ancestor, which introduced America to Modern art, and whether art fairs are really like the 99 Per Cent protest movement
Spear's Friends Tell Us What They Want for Christmas (Part Two)
We asked Spear's friends like Michael Caines, Paolo Trevisan and John Arlidge to tell us about Christmas: their best-ever gifts, their wished-for presents and how they like to spend the day
Spear's Friends Tell Us What They Want for Christmas (Part One)
We asked Spear's friends and contributors like Tom Aikens, Richard Dinan and William Sitwell to tell us about Christmases past and Christmas imminent: their best-ever gifts, their wished-for presents and how they like to spend the day
Santa's Naughty List on Spear's Christmas Card 2012
Spear's knows exactly who's been naughty and who's been nice, and while we've rewarded the nice with mince pies, festive jumpers and kisses under the mistletoe, the naughty have been named and shamed on our Christmas card by our cover artist, Adam Dant
Unbillable Hours
Our specialists solve your HNW problems (gratis!)
Q
In this new anti-tax-avoidance era, when so many tax reliefs have been withdrawn, I've heard that investing in a Business Property Renovation Allowance scheme is one of the few remaining good opportunities for maxing your tax position. Is it true that you can get up to 100 per cent tax relief on the amount invested? And what exactly are these schemes? How do they work? What are the upsides? Downsides?
A
In this climate, it is a relief to see one potentially attractive tax allowance come through unscathed from recent criticism
Spear's Wire
