Friends, Romans, Countrymen lend me your ears (of wheat) – the Friday Links blog

Some weeks there are bumper crops to be had out there in Linksland and the harvest is truly bountiful come Friday. And then there are other weeks that are blighted (apologies for mixed crop metaphors, we’re still on wheat not potatoes, bear with us on this stretched-to-breaking-point analogy) and the paltry sum of our efforts is a few scrawny ears that produce more chaff than wheat. Sadly, dear Friday Links lovers, after we’d given the ears a good thrashing and sifted the dehusked remains it would appear that there was nought but two lonely kernels amongst the chaff this week.

We fear a bit of crop rotation on the old search engine front might be in order to ensure better yields at the end of next week, but for now, we’d like to share our meagre supplies with you and hope that they provide just enough sustenance to see you into the weekend in good cheer.

First of all, we present London in all its 360 degrees glory. (For those not up on their arable history, wheat was one of the first crops that could be easily cultivated on a large scale and you could stockpile it, meaning that had it not been lil’ old wheat most city living to be had in the likes of London would have been nigh on impossible back in the day, the day being the dawn of civilisation.)

Now I fear we have exhausted our knowledge of cereals and done the analogy to death so no smooth segue into the next link just a bald statement of fact: someone has used cartoon bears to explain quantitative easing. Nuff said. Enjoy.