' The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread' ?

[AndyID]

Surely "wet ones" must be pretty high on the list? 

[Ian J.]

"Water standing upright", indeed.

 

Check out two, thick, buttered slices with four or more bacon rashers sandwiched between. Guess what's the only thing that's watering.  

 

On the other hand, you try and get a 'Bacon Bap' to stand upright.

 

Mmmmm, bacon...

[jjb1970]

Even with the caveat, yikes!

 

I accept your acceleration of technology premise, but can't define the war as a 'best thing'.

 

There is no question that the Manhattan project would not have happened without fear of the Third Reich creating something similar first. The money spent on the Manhattan Project was monumentally staggering and wouldn't likely have happened in peacetime. In the end, was it a good thing?

 

The early proliferation of nuclear weapons outside the US had more to do with espionage - less a comparable investment to what the US did.

 

Both the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program peaked at 0.4% of US GDP. The peaks were 1% and 2.2% of federal outlays respectively.

 

I challenge this assertion. Certainly there were many evolutionary improvements all accelerated by the military imperative, but the state of the art in aviation as of 1938 was not fabric covered biplanes with fixed undercarriages.

 

The Spitfire entered service in 1938. Variants were still operational in the Korean War - though by that point of course they were very inferior to the newest jets. Taking the B17 as an example, even though it was introduced in 1938, Boeing began work on pressurization that year and the USAAC called for a 'superbomber in April 1939. The B29 first flew in 1942 but wasn't introduced until 1944. It was state of the art at the end of the war. I wouldn't argue that the war didn't accelerate development, but it was not necessary for the development to happen.

 

Given the constant waves of technology adoption for the first 50 years of aviation, the jet age arguably would have happened without warfare, perhaps more slowly, but I think it have happened all the same.

 

The two things that probably wouldn't have happened as close to when they did without the impetus of the war were atomic weapons and rocketry - the defining technology of the Cold War.

 

The information age has appeared without warfare as a catalyst. It can be argued that the Cold War contributed, but the primary engine was commercial and started with spinning out the inventions from research labs into Silicon Valley start-up companies.

I didn't say that fabric covered biplanes were state of the art, I said they still had advocates. Yes, the Bf109 and Spitfire (itself a product of the re-armament program commenced in preparation for war) were advanced stressed skin mono-wing fighters with retractable under carriage in squadron service before the war but there were still plenty of older types in service and many pilots who were luke warm on the idea of enclosed cockpits and high wing loading. The Hurricane was essentially an evolutionary development of a bi-plane with fabric construction and provided the majority of fighter commands strength in the Battle of Britain. The B29 was effectively obsolete in 1945 as the performance and fire power of jet fighters transformed air combat, as would be shown a few years later in Korea. The jet age would certainly have happened, there is no doubt about that, but the war compressed commercialisation of the gas turbine massively. Another example of massively accelerated development was the naval technology race. The submarine was transformed into a true under water vessel, radar controlled gunnery, guided torpedoes, highly automated ship board systems, proximity fuses, tri-axially stabilised gun systems, improvements in sonar etc. Non of these innovations were created by the war, some of them were in limited service before the war but equally all of them would have taken a lot longer to come to fruition without the war.

On atomic weapons, the big factor in the Soviet program was not so much espionage as the fact that they understood that a bomb was possible once they learned of the Manhattan project. They certainly used espionage, but the USSR had no shortage of first class physicists (Kurchatov was every bit as effective as Oppenheimer and arguably a better physicist) and a government that made any resource considered necessary to develop the bomb available once they knew of the US bomb. Espionage undoubtedly assisted the Soviet's but it shortened their bomb program by a matter of months rather than fundamentally facilitating the Soviet bomb program I think. As to whether it was a good thing that is a difficult question to answer. As with the other technologies accelerated by WW2 it was not so much "if" but "when" the potential of atomic energy would have been exploited. The war time effort achieved in three or four years what may have taken several decades otherwise but the bomb would have been developed. Whilst it is a weapon of terrifying power I tend to think that fear of mutually assured destruction was pivotal in preventing a global war between the super powers (although clearly it did not prevent their wars by proxy in the developing world).

[Ceptic]

Mmmmm, bacon...

 And the aroma of frying such,..

 

Moving on into the evolution of Sliced bread, and the 'Best Thing Since', I'd like to nominate 'The Full English'. 

 

It appears that this item on the menu has caught on, nationally. Some would say, in a big way. See various eateries offering 

 

'Big Breakfast', 'All day Breakfast', 'Brunch, including Breakfast menu'.

[Tim Dubya]

That like up there was for the vege version (the Mrs will eat anything and always has me egg - she grew up in Africa and loves a bit of biltong now and again - well she'll eat anything that moves moved really).

 

Oh, yeah I'm in the extremist faction - vegan!

 

Best thing since sliced bread..

 

         sliced bread obviously!

[Horsetan]

.....I'm in the extremist faction - vegan!

Oh God, that's all we need.

[Tim Dubya]

Oh God, that's all we need.

 

Tell you what - I f#####g hate veg!

 

Cider - 5 of your 5 a day

 

Hey man be cool, the vegan society might be 'round to stare at you until you feel slightly uncomfortable (then apologise, then feel faint for a while, then have a "tasty" carob snack, then go sit under a tree, then...)

 

Peace & Cheese  man - (vegan of course)

[Ceptic]

Biltong

 

That like up there was for the vege version (the Mrs will eat anything and always has me egg - she grew up in Africa and loves a bit of biltong now and again - well she'll eat anything that moves moved really).

 

Oh, yeah I'm in the extremist faction - vegan!

 

Best thing since sliced bread..

 

         sliced bread obviously!

 Biltong, yep, available locally.

https://www.no1southafricanshop.co.uk/acatalog/Contact_Us.html,

 

 I used to work with an ex - Rhodesian. Top Bloke.

 

He moved to SA when things went 'Belly up' in the 'Reformed' Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

 

After several 'close calls', living there, he found a home, with his family, here, in the UK.

 

Throughout the time I've known him (Including Deep Purple and Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson concerts), he swore blind (Note:- These words are from a seasoned traveller) that the 'Best thing since sliced bread, fried bread, full English breakfast, fried eggs. bacon, Vegemite, Marmite' etc, etc... was Biltong. 

 

I have, being prejudiced  yet, to take him up on his preference.

 

Do you think I'm selling him short ?

[Tim Dubya]

Throughout the time I've known him (Including Deep Purple and Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson concerts), he swore blind (Note:- These words are from a seasoned traveller) that the 'Best thing since sliced bread, fried bread, full English breakfast, fried eggs. bacon, Vegemite, Marmite' etc, etc... was Biltong. 

 

I have, being prejudiced  yet, to take him up on his preference.

 

Do you think I'm selling him short ?

 

Give it a whirl mate and let us know.

 

I've even seen it in packets in Sainsburys and on market stalls (the last time in Devizes market, where the Mrs and her sisters were getting 'well' excited about finding it!)

 

The Mrs had to leave Zambia in '73, only to end up in Trowvegas (talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire).

[Horsetan]

....The Mrs had to leave Zambia in '73, only to end up in Trowvegas (talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire).

 

Could have been worse. She could have ended up in Kings Lynn. Or Boston (that's Lincs, not NJ).

[Tim Dubya]

Could have been worse. 

 

I take it you've never been to Trowvegas, actually you can't have because you're in Ealing... or are you?