A Pome Wot Oi Rote

What a hoot!
Paul Barford, burning bright,
In the woodlands of the night,
Machine in hand, and digging deep,
Excited by a bleep , bleep ,bleep,
[...].
It seems to me that a dunderhead detectorist must have come across Blake's "Tyger" at school but only managed to commit to memory the first line. He also missed the lesson on metre and register. Less frequently anthologised by English reading book authors is Blake's, The Voice of the Ancient Bard, from the same Songs of Experience - 1794, in which he writes:

Folly is an endless maze;
Tangled roots perplex her ways;
How many have fallen there!

Which seems quite an apposite comment on lowbrow artefacthuntual puerility.
Vignette: Tyger

Steve Confides in Dorothy

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Although there could hardly be a greater contrast in lifestyles, PhDiva Dorothy King is apparently hugely entertained by the toilet humour of Steve Taylor, she gave a plug for him and now she has even published his manifesto on her blog for him. "Anonymous" said...

Hi Dorothy, Thank you for highlighting my blog on Paul Barfords site. After he has spent the last 6 weeks attacking me on his blog, I thought I would give him a little of his own medicine, the hunter has now become the hunted. I have tried to reason with the guy, but he is on a one man mission to evoke as much trouble as possible.

I hope to force him down the ratings when you google Paul Barford, and put him on the second page where people won't look. He certainly won't want to copy and paste pieces from my blog onto his, so I will make them a crude as possible, as I know it is slowly getting to him. Regards Steve

Do please look on the PACHI blog what this bloke thinks is "attacking me for the past six weeks". He seems to think the whole blog is about him. He has been mentioned, and when he has replied, I have commented on his replies. A look over the portion of his responses that were fit to print will show that Mr Taylor seems to consider abusive language and threats "reasoning".

I do wonder about whether writing like a twelve year old schoolboy who thinks words like "shit" are "funny (tee hee)" really is "giving Mr Barford a taste of his own medicine". I do not recall writing about Mr Taylor (or any other collector) with reference to his alleged sexual preferences, excretory organs or with the use of any such language.

Yet Mr Taylor seems to have had objections to what I have been writing for well over "six weeks". These two jumpy and indistinct videos from May 2011 make that point clear with the reference to "the Barford Song", and also notable is the way these three represent themselves online as "nighthawks" followed by a nervous girlish laugh.



Here is another one from the same author, very similar in tone to Steve Taylor's blog:


Do I feel "hunted"? Not a bit of it, I think in his vulgar blog Mr Taylor is doing an excellent job exhibiting the sort of emotional and intellectual immaturity that abounds in metal detecting milieux (see above). His "one man mission to create as much trouble as possible" has already attracted some seven hundred page views and as far as I am aware no adverse comment in metal detecting fora. It seems Mr Taylor has struck a chord with many metal detectorists (and with Ms King) which I think says something about that milieu.

Taylor informs Dr King:

I hope to force him down the ratings when you google "Paul Barford", and put him on the second page where people won't look.

Mr Taylor apparently expects them to be so enthralled by his prose style that they will stay and browse his blog, rather than try and find what they were originally seeking, there being quite a few "Paul Barford"s on the Internet apart from his fictional impersonation. I can't see them being as chuffed by Steve's smutty literary efforts as PhDiva.

Mr Taylor is not quite right when he says that I "certainly won't want to copy and paste pieces from my blog onto his", on the contrary I think he provides critics of current policies with a lot of ammunition. I'll be discussing a few items (probably here more than on the main blog) if I see something useful. At the moment its mainly about anal and oral sex, excreta and rectal orifices. Not a lot there to discuss really. Taylor assures an expectant Dr King that

I make them a crude as possible, as I know it is slowly getting to him.

Not really, just confirms my opinion (and that of most other people that see it) about the whole sorry lot of you. It also looks like Taylor's infantile brain is beginning to run out of ideas, he is repeating himself and relying on making crude copies of well-known internet jokes.

T-rex spanner = Smithsonian Barbie

It's all a bit pathetic really.

Dealer Dave's Numismatic Qualifications

Welsh also claims that his period as a professional numismatist (ie selling coins) is longer than my archaeological career. His two years at Willoughby's, then two years freelance, that's four, then a break and then 2003 - the present, nine years. I make that thirteen years selling coins. He says 13 years is twice as long as 37 years, so with calculating abilities like that I think we can see why Welsh is no longer an engineer.

I also seem to remember when the ACCG was attacking numismatist Nathan Elkins because he was talking about the less salubrious side of the ancient coin trade Welsh and Hooker coming out with the statement that you could not be considered a "real" numismatist until you'd "at least twenty years experience" under your belt. Well, thirteen years as a "Professional (i.e. commercial) numismatist" falls below the standard he himself considered adequate.

His own answer to the first question he posed me, applied to his own "qualifications as a professional numismatist":
1) No, he does not hold a degree in numismatics, archaeology, art history, classical history or philology, anthropology or any of the humanities. He has an engineering degree gained from a Jesuit university.
And yet he claims the right to judge what archaeologists do and say nevertheless.

2) He has no numismatic or historical publications to speak of, a few articles in trade magazines, two texts on his website which he - but few others I suspect - considers "scientific". He claims "my qualifications in that field are as good as Mr. Barford's qualifications in the field of archaeology."
no, no they are not. Not by a long chalk.

3) He has in fact no qualifications which would entitle him to represent himself as being an expert in numismatic science alongside those who work in academic institutions and museums with many publications and books to their name. Not even a scholarship. He is a coin seller.

4) He says that although he has no real academic qualifications in the field he has "the same right any professional does to criticize those who engage in unjustified innuendoes and accusations regarding my profession". Absolutely, we can agree on that. I justify my accusations (I think I pretty well say what I think rather than using innuendos, don't I?), I have a blog full of them. I'll be having some papers and a book out soon, so perhaps Mr Oh-So-Professional can get beyond mere "criticism of the person" and get on with countering their arguments.

Otherwise you are no better Mr Welsh than the "Candice Jarman"s and "Frettening language farmhand Steve Taylor" and " Spammer Personal Coach Norman Kennedy" and all the rest that figure on the pages of this ghetto blog.

Discrediting Tactics Instead of Open Discussion

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Now there are people who ignore the issues I raise in my Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues blog, there are those who enter into the spirit of the debate and try to refute my arguments and opinions. Then there are the metal detectorists. How do they react? A glance through the comments section reveals none of them uses their real name, they send abusive posts full of aggressive phrasing and threats or just generally set out to be abusive and disruptive. I think I am right in saying that there is no more than a handful of comments written by UK metal detectorists ("passionately care about the past") that does not fall into that category.

Outside we see the same thing. The infamous photoshopped faux gay-porn photo send by metal detectorist "Belzoni" to the public access Portable Antiquities Scheme Forum which was one of the last of a series of disruptive events in response to broader discussion of the Scheme and its activities which led to it being closed down. Then we had the "Barfordisation" blog by "Steve Welton", author of a libellous "Wikipedia" page about me - mercifully gone. Now we have "Candice Jarman". Then within the last weeks the promise we'd soon see "hundreds" of metal detectorists opening blogs intending to "swamp" my blog and get it closed down "one way or another". So far the only new arrival on the cultural property blogosphere is by the sender of those words.

Now to give the bloke his due, this is the first one to actually use his real name, the rest have been hiding behind pseudonyms ("Candice" has even changed his gender to further throw people off the track). Steve Taylor is a real metal detectorist, well-known and not only in Gloucestershire, it seems. So anyway after finding that threats don't really work, he has set out on a one-man mission to save the reputation of English metal detectorists by swamping out what one bloke in Poland is saying about them in the wider context of collecting issues. So what arguments is he offering? Well, obviously, he wants people to think he is me, got himself a blogger URL similar to mine to maybe capture some of the traffic which might otherwise go to my main blog:
His: http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/
Mine: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/
Spot the difference. Here's the profile of the "author" of this blog:


Now apart from the scatological "humour" that betrays this person's general educational level ("educated to 11+ standard but has fallen back ever since") he also accuses me of involvement in an illegal activity - "Interests: nighthawking". Passing on to the "content", the first post and the picture accompanying it sets the tone of the whole endeavour:

"Belzoni" all over again, and why not, they are old metaldetecting partners together. Please note the author managed to get all the way through a British school without lernink the diffrense between "there" and "their". Nor the difference between good and bad taste, or why normal people don't go around accusing somebody of an act which is illegal in the country where they live. "Strike two", Mr Taylor. "Antiquities" is spelt with an "i". A post made last night manages to insult my father, my wife and again accuse me (and her) of an act illegal in the country where it is alleged to have taken place (here stated as a 'fact' and not an allegation). "Strike Three" Mr Taylor. You are out.



So far, just four posts:
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barfords-new-book.html
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barfords-academic-history.html
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barford-early-years.html
http://paulbarford.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-barford-caught-in-public-toilet.html

I commend a reflection on the contents of this new blog to any supporters of the Portable Antiquities Society, and any supporters of the Portable Antiquities Scheme as an excellent example typical of the mentality and lack of intellectual and emotional maturity of many a metal detectorist in the UK. These are the people current policy rewards for digging up the fragile remains of the archaeological record for entertainment and profit. These people are not, as ex-Culture-Minister Lammy once implied "alienated" and disinherited from society, here we see the process of alienation and the expression of self-centred entitlement operating in the other direction. Take a good look at this crudity, and then turn back to my blog and consider whether there is anything inherently unreasonable in what I say there about the need to reassess current policies on artefact hunting in the UK. And if there is, whether the metal detectorists' way of dealing with the problem as seen in Mr Taylor's blog is the most publicly acceptable one.


This rather looks like the way an English inner city hoodie would talk about somebody who gets in the way of doing what he wants to do, rather than an expression of views by a member of the community of people "caring about the heritage".

"Morning Paul"

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This morning metal detectorist trouble maker, stalker and spammer Steve Taylor wishes me to believe he is now waiting for me outside my house:

Lovely house you've got, must be wanting to pick up a morning paper soon!

Well, there are certainly less binbags and skips and white vans on the driveway here than outside the houses on the back-to-back council estate with the pokey overgrown back gardens that the above email was actually sent from. There are no hoodies walking past my front door.

More [Spam] About New Portable Antiquities Collecting Issues Blogs

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Metal detectorist, stalker and vindictive email spammer Steve Taylor initially decided he would threaten me with this kind of stuff (23rd July 2011):

I don’t get banned off every detecting forum for being a nice guy, I’m more hated than you and that takes a lot of doing. I think I might write a blog about you Paul, and zero in on you house, with x marks the spot. You won’t get far with me because most of my houses are rented out. Maybe I should move out to Poland, we could be neighbours, I could even look after your kids, that would be nice.

Then more recently his aims got a lot more ambitious:

Hi Paul, the Paul Barfords blogs are coming on fine, should be on line soon. Trying to get several 100 detectorists to start one, so your site is swamped and falls onto the back burner where it belongs. [...] One way or another Paul, I will close your site down. Have a nice day.
Steve Taylor

One hundred literate detectorists writing about portable antiquity collecting issues, eh? That should be an interesting spectacle. Why don't they just open all their forums (like Mr Taylor's Portable Antiquities Society one) to public view so people can see that nothing untoward is being discussed by all those thousands of "responsible detectorists" out there?

So keep your eyes open for the "Orl Archie's R Tosser's" blog by Baz, "Finder's Keeper's Its Are Heritidge" blog by Shazzer the Shovel, and the NCMD blog "Archie Toffs, Get Orf Are Case" by Trev. Then of course from Surrey there will be the "Detecting Solicitors in Defence of Personal Artefact Accumulation" by a former High Court judge who has taken up metal detecting with the lads in his retirement; there are probably lots of those in metal detecting clubs up and down the country.

(If Mr Taylor's house near Cheltenham is rented out, that would explain the state of the former estate manager's garden).

Vignette: Who need's a spellcheck?

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Treasure Hunter Turns "Detective"

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For the past couple of days another metal detectorist has been spamming my email inbox to join the other utter jerks who've been doing the same. It seems some people do not want anyone discussing artefact hunting. Steven Taylor a metal detectorist well-known in the Gloucestershire region first decided he was going to set Polish metal detectorists on me, not really recognising the somewhat different (not to say precarious) position of artefact hunting in Poland from that in England. Now he has been sending posts indicating he knows my address and is coming to see me "in two weeks". After, it seems he had worked out the costs and likely consequences (oh, DO bring your metal detector Mr Taylor), he has decided on another form of harassment:

The Poulton Hoard has left a new comment on your post "Collector Buys Exported Hoard but Gives it Back": You seem to have just 2 friends Paul one lives in Canada and another in Germany, I have all there (sic) details as they linked to my site and left a lovely trail, which a blind man could follow. I will post up my new anti barford blog shortly identifying where you and your friends live. With X marks the spot See you soon.

So, if Mr Taylor is not "all mouth and no trousers" as somebody said of him to me three days ago, the blogosphere is reportedly about to be blessed with another anti-Barford blog - this one apparently intends to attack people who even read my texts. That's the third blog opposed to my writing what I write (not counting the libellous Wikipedia article).

The Hidden Dark Underbelly of UK "Metal Detecting"

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So yet another metal detectorist attempts to distract attention away from the issues being raised by preservationists like myself; Steve Taylor announces (see the post above) the imminent arrival of a third anti-Barford blog. It seems I am onto something with my comments on British policies on artefact hunting. These people are really hoping if they shut me up, the problems that I identify will continue to be ignored. Probably they are right, these are all things the PAS should be saying, and they show zero interest in doing anything at all in that area. Thirteen million quid over as many years and we still have people like 52-year old Steve Taylor strutting around showing off their contempt for anyone who thinks about artefacts in any way different from himself, as he says on one of the few bits of the Portable Antiquities Society website still accessible to public view:

I cannot stand archaeologist or F.L.O's probably for good reason. I believe the objects in the ground belong to all of us, not just museums.

Or Candice Jarman:

I passionately believe that archaeology belongs to the people - to all of us - and not to archaeologists. [...] In todays straightened (sic) times, can we afford to support so many University Archaeology Departments and Archaeology Units from the public purse?

and John Howland:

Across the Shires, the arkies are squealing like stuck pigs with their holier-than-thou protestations. Like the bully-boys they are, they can dish it out but can’t take it back. I’ve waited for over thirty years for this wonderful day to arrive; ‘tis music to my ears..... Well done Alan Melton. [my hyperlink - PMB]

Together with all the fellow anti-archaeological shout-down-the-opposition crowd: Jeb, Sheddie, Deepseeker, Belzoni, Baz, Kevmar, Clive Hallam, Edward Thompson and the many dozen others, too many to remember individually, whose idea of engaging with archaeology is to simply disrupt anything that looks as if it might develop into a sensible discussion about important issues (like the ACCG coineys then). That there is such a groundswell of non-compliance and opposition in the UK should not be shielded from view by the tendency of the advocates of artefact hunting intent on producing the impression that "the majority of artefact hunters are responsible". But it is not them that is doing the damage to the archaeological record which is being done by laissez faire wishy-washy pseudo-policies on artefact hunting in the UK. What does Britain plan to do with the rest? Ignore them and hope they go away? Pretend they don't exist and maybe they'll come round? Or take steps to deal with them that are inevitably going to cramp the style of the responsible guys? But then, is it not precisely the passivity of the majority of the "responsible guys" towards the extent of the loutishness in their ranks of the hobby that leads to this situation?

More on Death Threats from Portable Antiquities Society

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Regarding his threats sent to my blog ('Portable Antiquities Society Makes Death Threats'), the head of the Portable Antiquities Society has again contacted me explaining:

when you make libellous remarks about someone, you really don’t know who you are dealing with. I have always been known as a nasty piece of work, and people who have caused me trouble usually pay a high price.

It seems quite a lot of UK metal detectorists have not the foggiest idea what libel actually is. Nobody has made any libellous comments about the Society or its creator, and the law is entirely clear what recourse the injured party has if they allege that they have been libelled.

That many metal detectorists are "nasty pieces of work" is amply confirmed by what they themselves say about what colleagues have threatened or done in various circumstances and what we hear from PAS staff when Roger Bland is not listening and other UK archaeologists who have confronted them (most avoid doing so). Mr Taylor has a "reputation" and its not the first time this individual has been mentioned on the pages of this blog. So yes I think we all get a fairly good idea what kind of person we are dealing with from the words of his own mouth. There are many like him in the ranks of British metal detecting. Join a forum or two yourselves and take a look at what you see.

We might ask why the Mr Taylor thinks I am "causing him trouble" by looking at the material he himself posts on the internet. Like everybody else, I have every right to look at what is made available in the public domain and every right to express my opinion about it. Certainly much more right than Mr Taylor has threatening anyone at all over it.

Incidents like this brought out into the open show that it really is about time the public in Britain woke up to just what kind of people are among those going out in the fields onto archaeological sites with metal detectors either within or outside the law and taking away unsustainably large numbers of archaeological finds for entertainment and profit.

Read Steve Taylor's Website at your own Peril

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From the not-so-urbane Steve Taylor, metal detectorist, an off-blog email just received:

Hi Arsehole I see you like my Roman coin and press cuttings, maybe you could give me a little boost on my website. By the way got a little surprise for you in your home country. In comunication with a couple of polish people, got a little job for them. Play with fire and you get burnt, little boy. See you soon or not

I'm in communication with quite a few Poles about metal detecting too, what a coincidence. Let us see with whom Mr Taylor is networking.

Let it be noted, this was precipitated by me looking at the public sections of Steve Taylor's Portable Antiquities Society website. So I guess Mr Taylor does not really want people looking at the finds depicted on his website. Why do you think he's so touchy about them that he is so concerned to induce others to give past viewers a "little surprise"?

Hot links and metal detected finds in museums

Steve Taylor replies to my previous post asking him to explain what he and his lawyer mean by the use of the term "copyright":

Hello Mr. Barford

You obviously are a very
knowledgeable person and seem to know everything there is to know about nothing.
Here is some information for you to digest about hot linking
and the theft of other peoples videos for your own blog.

You seem to be a collision course for self destruction
on your private war against UK detectorists.I have now instructed the various Museums I have loaned items too over a number of years, to return them, because
of your personal attracts on the hobby.Many of these museums did not have the funding to purchase these items and were loaned by myself for the public to
view.I have told them why I am now asking for the items to be returned, and I now hope to turn the archaeological community against yourself.

Regard Steve Taylor

Hotlinking, aka inline linking, is the practice of displaying a file such as an
image or flash object on a page that is stored on another site. While it has legitimate uses; often people will hotlink images without the permission of the owner of the site being referenced. Because the object is being called from the server of origin, that account is the one that wears the bandwidth expense for delivering the image for display. In the cases of unauthorized hotlinking, it's not only a copyright issue, but
bandwidth theft. It become a particularly nasty problem for sites with many photographs and original images.

Mr Taylor seems to be unaware what the term "hot linking" actually means. In my Portable Antiquities and heritage Issues blog, within a text discussing a video on Google Videos, I provided a hyperlink to the Google Video site which opened a video on that site. this is NOT "hot linking" by any stretch of the imagination. The term seems reasonably clearly explained in the text Mr Taylor cut-and-pasted to me (I am sure he sought the page owner's permission first given the general 'touchiness' of this milieu about such things). So I am puzzled why he does not understand it.

This is simply the normal time-wasting tactics employed by the detecting milieu when they have nothing substantiative to say.

As for taking "his" objects from public display as a reaction to me discussing a video he made of a detecting holiday in Suffolk on a blog, then really that simply demonstrates the depth of the public responsibility detectorists like Mr Taylor display. What were his motives in loaning them to museums in the first place - to offset criticism by archaeologists, or to make a contribution to public knowledge? I wonder if he will be contacting the landowners on whose land these things were found to explain the reasons why he is now not sharing them with the public? We still have no news whether the finds from Suffolk we saw in the video reached the PAS or local museum.

What is "copyright" in the eyes of a metal detectorist's lawyer?

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:07 AM, Paul Barford wrote:
Your sad erotic fantasies about Mrs Barford's lingerie are neither here nor there. Despite my asking, you have not enlarged on the theme of what you think "copyright" is, thus you are unable to specify with reference to its proper definition how I allegedly "infringed copyright". Could you also enlarge please on what your copyright lawyer says about the term "host" with reference to the Internet? Thanks.

Paul Barford

Intimate apparel fantasies of Steve Taylor?

latest from Steve Taylor. I wrote:
the video to which I posted a link is certainly hosted here: http://video.google.co.uk/[...], not "a metal detecting forum", though it was a metal detectorist who drew my attention to it.
He graciously replies:

Right Turd brain.

The video titled 'The Plunderers' which you posted a link too, was an unlisted video on Google, which I had hosted to friends on the detecting forum.

This was a private video which you had posted on your blog, without my authorisation, so you had no right to host it.

It would be the same if I was to break into you house and host photographs of your wife's soiled crutch less knickers for all to see, then maybe you might be a little pissed off.

What are "unlisted" videos?

If you have a video you'd rather not share with the entire world, you can choose to restrict access to it by marking it as "unlisted."
Similar to an unlisted telephone number that isn't available in public phone number databases, videos that have been unlisted are not accessible through Google Video search results. This option is especially useful for family videos. Just set your video to "unlisted" and email the link to your family and friends.

Feel free to post this on your blog, WANKER!

Nevertheless, it was hosted on Google, and the link was posted on a public forum, which I too visit and was not there indicated as in any way "restricted", so I looked and commented. I really do not see what there is to hide, there was no illegal detecting going on there, was there? Why the secrecy?

And for the record, I did not "host" the video on my blog, merely posted a link from it to the Google site. Secondly when the video was active, it could be accessed from outside by a search under "Steve Taylor" and "other videos by this author".

As I said to Mr Taylor in my letter "Since this is beginning to get rather repetitive, let's have a proper discussion on what the word "copyright" means". Mr Taylor has not indicated where my posting a link to his video is "an infringement of copyright". It is perfectly legitimate fair use.

Steve Taylor versus Google video

In reply to British metal detectorist Steve Taylor.

With reference to your letter "Copyright" of 11th October rec'd 20:13.

Mr Taylor, there is nothing "illegal" in me posting a link on my blog to a video which is hosted on "Googlevideo". Neither in the circumstances in which I posted that link is it a breach of "copyright". This was 'fair use' (please look it up) and under no circumstances can it be possibly conceived as any form of "theft". I did not identify it as my own work and gave the name of the author as it was cited on the Google Video webpage where I found it (where I had been pointed by a fellow "metal detectorist"). I hardly think my sending viewers to the Google Video site via a link on my blog entitles you to any form of financial "compensation". Though please do seek that legal advice on the matter. Any eventual legal decision in that regard will be of great importance to the future of the Internet, both the "Inter" part as well as the "Net" part. If you dislike the possibility that Google Video allows other people to create links to your work, then please take it up with them, not me.

Personally I think this is simply a malicious attempt to waste other people's time, but perhaps your legal advisor will benefit financially from it.

Best of luck to you. I presume you will keep us all informed of the progress of your deliberations.

In any case, the video seems to have gone.

Oy M8, that's copyrite!

The immediate reason for setting this second blog up was that a number of metal detector using artefact hunters and collectors apparently associated with the "detectorist.co.uk" forum have been harassing me over the past few days with a barrage of email communications concerning what they allege are 'copyright violations' committed by me in my referring to material on their forum and other resources disseminated by the Internet.

It seems to me that these metal detectorists would like to shield their exploitive and erosive hobby from criticism, and are casting about for a means to do it. They typically append footers to the emails in which they make their baseless allegations (copied one from another) denying the recipient the right to share their contents with third parties, and of course have so far denied permission to post their words here so that people can see what they are actually asserting. This is typical, British metal detectorists are typically all mouth and no trousers when it comes to actually backing up their claims with proper and articulate arguments. Members of this milieu are however also making such allegations publicly elsewhere: http://paulbarfordstinx.blogspot.com/

From the messages I have received so far, it appears to me that their senders have not the foggiest idea of what copyright law actually says, neither in their own country (the United Kingdom) nor that in the milieu where the blog arose (Poland) and is hosted (the United States). Their messages suggest to me that they actually have no knowledge of what can be copyrighted and what not and are too lazy to try to find out. They appear to have no knowledge of what constitutes fair use in criticism and review. They seem to think that the laws of copyright have in some way been formulated to prevent free speech and to protect THEIR hobby from any form of scrutiny or criticism, rather than its true purpose to protect the physical products of creativity.

So I invite these individuals to an open and civil discussion of their grievances here on this blog. Only one rule, no pseudonyms, real names only guys. What is the problem in signing your own name beneath your own words?

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.