More sniping and ducking

Buffy the “middle class” blogging pie-scoffer claims

“I have been getting many messages of support but the one below was very well received by myself.. I have omitted the posters details as it is someone from outside the metal detecting community and well respected in their professional field so probably best we just see the comment. "Thank you....!, this has been well needed.......... pulling the cheesy mat from under the clay footed one.....keep it up" You know who you are- many thanks and keep checking the Blog (and emailing the Blog link within your professional community and posting on forums)

Best indeed. We would not want you revealing the name of the persistent purveyor of all those dots marking an inability to formulate complete sentences. After all hiding behind false names and sniping from behind the anonymity of the Internet is what it’s all about isn’t it? Do I respect a “professional” who cannot actually address their “professional” arguments to my face and leaves it up to “metal detecting” bloggers to do the dirty work? I'll give you three guesses “metal detectorists”.

As for posting links to Buffy's blog to their professional forums, let him by all means. Let the professionals see who Kate Clerk's review of the Portable Antiquities Scheme makes their PARTNERS.

If any professionals (including Pantomime Archaeologists) have anything to say - negative as wwell as positive - about the archaeological issues I raise about artefact hunting and personal collection, then I invite them to my other blog Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues. It's just a mouse click away from Buffy's rodential buffoonery.

The Buffetisation of Debate on Conservation

It seems to me that "Buffy" the self-styled “middle-class detectorist” who apparently imagines he is the conservation lobby’s intellectual nemesis has lost sight of his own arguments. The sole basis of his blog consists of a series of taunting accusations that in writing of the erosion of the archaeological record by artefact hunting and collecting I am engaging in something he calls “Barfordisation” of the hobby. In reply to his comments, let us simply observe that (what seems more justifiable to label) “Buffetisation”:

- puts the presenter of the argument above the substance of the argument,

- uses inverted snobbery to gain the moral high ground,

- utilises negative social stereotyping to maintain that high ground.

Maybe person-calling-himself-Buffet could look in his own "mirror" . At least I write under my own name so it is clear who is saying what.

Buffy promises his readers "later on we will further examine ‘Barfordisation’ within the context of the much maligned and vilified activity of metal detecting". Hmm. if past performance is anything to judge by, somehow I do not think this is really going to be worth waiting for. Probably a lot of glib platitudes, puerile personal sniping interspersed with things he's found on the internet that some famous bloke has said and pictures of assorted rodents. Still I am sure it'll keep his tekkie M8s amused.

Anti-PAS Ham Cabaret

Buffy the pie-scoffing Middle Class Detectorist is not the only clown one can find on the UK "metal detecting" scene; now they have DIY cabaret.

Two days ago a really awful new video " You Called Me Irresponsible" appeared on You Tube. In it Norwegian "metal detectorist" Gary Brun holds a metal detector while jigging frenetically around behind a microphone with a series of photos flashing on and off a monitor behind him. He is lip-syncing (badly) a song about... well, what on earth is it about? It seems to be a personal attack on Roger Bland and the Portable Antiquities Scheme and refers in some oblique way to the UK Detector Finds Database. Quite what posessed him to do that is anyone's guess. I am in no doubt that his equally "responsible" "metal detectorist" mates think its side-splittingly funny. As apparently does one archaeologist.

The video is apparently:

Dedicated to all metal detectorists who record their finds in
the UK and around the world. The UK Detecting Code Of Practice calls you "responcible" ONLY if you record with the PAS. What about all those detectorists who have been recording for years with the HER and other organisations?? The heritage belongs to all and not just those with an ology.

Now, why would a truly responsible artefact hunter have anything against the Portable Antiquities Scheme? Which of its aims is in conflict with their beliefs?

Buddy quotes Goethe

Buffy the Middle Class Detectorist now attempts further to set himself apart from his fellow detectorists by now quoting Goethe:

"Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows thier image"
Goethe Coming some time soon.

Obviously the forthcoming post is not going to be a remark on the ethics of artefact collecting either. This is despite his blog being called "Paul-Barford-Blog-Response" (referring to my Portable Antiquities and Heritage Issues blog). No matter, it is rapidly emerging that Buffy has nothing to say about anything much, let alone on that topic.

Buffy the Pie Gobbler Blogs and Gobs

Buffy the Ham Pie Slayer strikes again. He says: "I notice that this Blog has reached across the water to the depths of Poland and Warsaw in particular". Hardly surprising as its author or one of his mates sent me a message inviting me to look at his handiwork. Needless to say, hiding behind his pseudonym, does not advance any argument about the erosion of the archaeological record or the Valetta Convention or any meritorial matters I have raised about portable antiquity collecting, but focusses largely on my mistyping, and quite unneccessarily lectures me on the use of the word "perjury", (I had earlier expressed surprise that a person claiming to be "working in law" would misuse it in the way the author of the new blog did).

Never mind, the guy clearly has nothing to say about what I have posted on my other blog about the ethics and archaeological implications of collecting or any of the wider issues, so intends merely to continue (as do most artefact collectors it seems) a series of personal attacks. It seems that, despite being so concerned in the earlier posts on his blog to point out how unlike the rest of the metal detectorists in the UK he is, he intends to behave in this respect in no way differently from any of the rest.