More Bazthugwittery: Brexit Isolationism Welcomed

The Cyclone of Change Posted on December 23, 2019 by "John Howland"

GREAT news [is] looming on the horizon for both the UK and its metal [sic] community now that our departure from the EU’s clutches takes effect from January 2020. But not everyone’s joyful. Simply cock an ear to the prevailing wind and you might just catch a faint, curious, grinding sound breezing in. What you’re hearing is archaeology’s loony left panic-stricken wing (and no, they’re not all locked up) wailing and gnashing their teeth at Boris Johnson’s Conservative landslide win in the General Election. Their policies to submit us to further EU bureaucracy and more anti-detecting/collecting legislation have all the permanency of a snowman in the Sahara.

EU 

It follows that our hobby/pastime will be rid of the EU’s unelected Commissioners who’ve previously tried, unsuccessfully, to outlaw the hobby. The bad news for our detectorist colleagues in Europe is that they are still yoked to authoritarian laws and diktats. One of these was a 1941 law passed in Nazi-occupied France and ‘interpreted’ decades later to restrict hobbyists – as a counter metal detecting’s growing popularity there. [...] Oh, for sure, the Cyclone of Change is a-blowin’. To my reader and follower….have a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy, and LUCRATIVE 2020.

British heritage policy always was aberrant in Europe, now the detectorists are isolated in a separatist regime, it remains to see what will happen.

Artefacts Stolen From Train in Durham

Wednesday, 20 November 2019 Artefacts Left on Train in Durham

British Transport Police are looking for an individual who took a bag left by a passenger from London who forgot to take it when they left the train in Durham. The bag contained a Late Medieval ring and a Late Roman fibula (BBC Ring and brooch 'treasures' taken from Edinburgh-bound train 20th Nov 2019):

Police said the items, valued at £1,000 and £500, were taken from an Edinburgh-bound service travelling from Durham. The rare jewellery was left in a red plastic bag in the overhead locker by a passenger who disembarked at Durham. However, the items were not handed into lost property and are now presumed stolen, said British Transport Police. The medieval ring, which was left with the brooch in a red plastic Aldi bag, has the inscription "o mi hart is yovrs" (oh my heart is yours) on its inside. The passenger who left the items was travelling from London to Durham on an Edinburgh-bound service. The jewellery is thought to have been taken sometime between the evening of 4 October and 12.30 on Saturday 5 October. Anyone with information is asked to contact the British Transport Police.

The ring was recorded by the PAS: DUR-05020D on Weds Oct 24th 2018 (Treasure case 2018T790). The brooch was also recorded by the Durham FLO (on Monday 18th June 2018, DUR-7DDAA3, Treasure case 2018T429). Interestingly, both records were 'updated' Monday 18th November 2019 - but not with the information that they'd been stolen. The photos used in the article are attributed to the Transport Police, but are in fact PAS photos. It seems a lot of the details are (deliberately?) fogged. How did the person with the red plastic Aldi bag come by these artefacts? The PAS has in the past used orange plastic Sainsbury's bags, would the artefacts have been safer in one of them?.

More Bazthugwittery: Detectorist Reacts to Leominster Hoard Convictions

Note that Baz was really loath to mention this case until the men were convicted and sentenced: Just desserts….. Posted on November 22, 2019 by "John Howland"

The two Welsh detectorists found a nationally important hoard of coins and artefacts Worcester Crown Court was told and that they ignored the law which states such finds must be properly declared. Instead they tried to sell the items in small batches and one of the pair was nabbed as he tried to sell five of the coins to an undercover cop.[...] these two idiots have done the hobby no favours and their actions tarnish us all with the thieving brush. I have no sympathy with them at all. If they can’t take a joke* they shouldn’t have joined. End of. It’s also a timely warning to others who might be tempted. The Treasure laws over here are so good, there is no need to do as these idiots did – they fully deserve all they got. I feel sorry for the Welsh detecting clubs of which they were members – they have an uphill struggle to disassociate themselves from these criminals. These convictions are manna from Heaven for the ‘anti’ lobby on archaeology’s loony wing who are in a feeding frenzy and this kind of ‘sexy’ news has doubtless given some of them erections.

* Eh?
Note, however, that there is no concern here for the archaeological damage these men did, only the damage to the "reputation" of Collection-Driven Exploitation of the Archaeological Record.

Tekkie infighting: "iDetect abusing The Man With The Hat"

A compacted version of a Hampshire detectorist's recent livestream attack on another Youtuber 'The Man In The Hat', publicly calling him a "nonce" and a "pedophile" after he was kind enough to make iDetect a coin ring and send him some other freebies. Watch the original video here [UPDATE - Now deleted]

Watch The Man in the Hat's response video here iDetect claims this was all just a "joke" and he refuses point blank to make a public apology which is all The Man In The Hat asked for. https://youtu.be/li-X8xLkc40 (also over-long, but rather illustrative of metal detectorist mores).  

posted on You Tube by Richard Ross  17 Oct 2019

Embrace the Madness: Metal Detectorist and their Name-calling

"Detector-using heritage grabbers not only talk like idiots and often look like idiots, but don’t be fooled by their supporters – they really are…idiots".

Embrace the Darkness: UK Detecting on the Dark Web

Many detectorists on
 the dark side now

A new secret Facebook page: The Detectorists Metal detecting uk. Remember, the members' credo is

'Respect everyone's privacy; being part of this group requires mutual trust. Authentic [information] may also be sensitive and private. What's shared in the group should stay in the group'.  

More Bazthugwittery: 'on Conservation'

Get it out

According to Baz, conservation of archaeological sites does not really make much sense, but - in his opinion -   is a form of 'Knowledge loss… by neglect', posted on September 3, 2019 by "John Howland"

I recently stumbled across a bizarre idea [...] “…it is better to leave objects and other evidence in the ground where it has been lying safely for hundreds or thousands of years. Here it remains safe for future generations to investigate with better techniques and with better-informed questions to ask.” Whoever dreamt up such idiocy obviously didn’t think it through to its logical conclusion. [...] Well, arkies and arkiedom, that’s fine…so don’t dig, be happy, but don’t try and palm this lunacy off on detectorists as ‘best practice.’ [...] [we, who] want no truck with the insanity of abandoning artefacts to the tender mercies of chemical deterioration, will rightly cast it aside as poor heritage practice and continue to bring fabulous historical items into the light of day for study and evaluation. Also, never let it be said it’s unethical to sell, or profit from any object found [...] What is unethical, is leaving artefacts in the ground [...] The utter lunacy of leaving valuable and notionally historical objects in the ground not only robs the heritage but seriously short-changes the public. It amounts to knowledge loss by neglect.

More Bazthugwittery: Fighting the Flies

The People want to overthrow
 their oppressors

Metal detectorist "John Howland" in "Dodge City" on May 9, 2019 at 6:39 pm reckons that:

Archaeological grip on the heritage is fortunately diminishing and they are clinging to power by their fingertips. Joe and Jill Public are pursuing their own heritage ambitions using their own means; and that often means using a metal detector. Their discoveries are simply amazing. Metal detecting, like relic collecting is wholesome, educational, and beneficial to the greater heritage good. Like it or not, some in our pastime don’t realise the struggle for metal detecting freedom has a serious political dimension. Our hobby has been so successful the British Government can’t afford to pay the LEGAL dues to finders under the laws of Treasure Trove; a situation the Comrades have jumped on to further their own stinking political ambitions to control populist heritage research and mug the populace of their property. Archaeology, especially here in the UK, has always attracted politicos of the extreme Left like flies to a turd [...] The real tragedy is that archaeology’s ordinary rank-and-file, the decent guys, can’t or won’t believe how they are being suckered in. [...] The truth always wins through in the end. It might take time and probably a few tears, but we’ll get there.