Purpose of this blog

This blog was originally created (as a supplement to my Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues [PACHI] blog created just three months earlier) to discuss side issues arising from discussion of so-called "metal detecting" in Britain. Metal detectorists in the UK have very little of substance to say of the wider issues raised in public debate on artefact hunting and collecting. They therefore can apparently think of nothing better than to adopt a strategy of disruption - attempting to divert discussion away from the main topic into side issues. This tactic is intended to frustrate open debate and stifle free speech concerning the exploitation of archaeological sites for entertainment and profit and its effects on everybody's archaeological heritage.

This blog therefore has been set up to deal with the proliferation of such side issues. Some of thee people are deliberately setting out to be provocative and annoying, and I feel there should be some comeback. In others, some of the things they say to provoke may mislead the outside reader - coming across a statement on the internet without knowing its context- and so requires some kind of an answer somewhere. Answering these people however gives them the oxygen they require and to do so from my  Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues (PACHI) blog would do precisely that. This blog is therefore intended as an overflow to my other blog. It is a sort of blog-ghetto for posts dealing with the less pleasant side of the so-called "heritage debate" with this sector of the public. I leave readers of both blogs to determine for themselves to what extent one can actually debate real and weighty issues with artefact collectors, dealers and their paid lobbyists.

I make no apologies for the somewhat sarcastic tone of some of the posts that may follow. After over a decade of this, harassment, puerile personal attacks and petulant insults instead of real arguments from the entire milieu and their supporters, I personally find it increasingly difficult to treat much of this with any seriousness, this is a blog, not an academic journal.

Due to its nature, it is not anticipated that the general reader will find much of interest here, this is an overflow necessitated by the behaviour of artefact hunters from my other blog "Portable Antiquities and Heritage Issues" to which interested readers are cordially invited.