Sliced Bread Redux

A few days ago I posted a rather slight poem inspired by a rather slight BBC news story about bread. I linked to the story which was about the invention of the method that produces the kind of pasty, uniformly-sliced bread that is the most common form on sale today. (However good or bad that might be!)

I also posted it on wordcraft where a fair bit of protest was raised from all quarters. Most humourously it was raised by Guy Barry.

Here then is a repeat of my poem, followed by Guy's reply.

On the fiftieth birthday of sliced bread

How could I not have known?
Why has no one ever said?
They really should have told me!
I'm older than sliced bread.
Sliced bread is only fifty -
In fact fifty years today -
And me, I'm fifty-four
And beginning to decay.

For four years from the start
Of my still enduring life
People went on cutting
Their bread up with a knife
They managed for themselves
The thickness of a slice
And most people I am sure
Sliced their fingers once or twice.

But four years after me
The sliced loaf was invented
And sandwich makers everywhere
Were happy and contended.
The best thing since sliced bread?
Many things are said to be!
But the best that went before?
Well, clearly, that was me.

                                    Bob Hale

How could you not have known?
No wonder no one said!
Now everyone has told you
You're younger than sliced bread.
Sliced bread is over eighty,
By quite a little way;
At only fifty-four, you seem
A long way from decay.

But four years after you
The folks at Chorleywood
Invented springy, spongy bread
Which didn't taste so good.
Why can't the supermarkets sell
The proper stuff instead?
A loaf from Chorleywood is not
The best thing since sliced bread!

                        Guy Barry

It's very difficult to argue with that.  Thanks, Guy for the permission to repost it.