Some of my readers may have followed my suggestion to register with some of the UK forums where metal detectorists hide their deliberations away in closed area and hide under pseudonyms. Those that have will find a video included on the new PAs website ("Skunky and Clive's Commercial Artefact Hunting Grabfest") very informative in several ways. Above all it helps put some faces to some of the more vociferous contributors to discussions on those Forums. I must admit to being myself surprised by the revelation by Mr Taylor the film-maker of the identity of one of them.There is also an intrusion on the privacy of the couple known as the Nighthawking Bastards, now those who have winced at their YouTube performances and followed the adventures of 'Groundstabber' on UKDN will know what they look like now.
I'd like to draw attention to the bit where the rally participants are showing their finds in the middle of the film. There is something here I have noted before, but this really seems to be suggesting its part of a wider pattern. Note the prevalence of serious dermatological conditions on the skin of their hands and nails. What is the connection there between metal detector use and skin disease?
[As for a typical example of a "Nighthawking bastards" sketch try 'nighthawking bastards getting permission' (farmers might like to note how some artefact hunters see landowners). Apparently metal detectorists find this kind of thing hilariously funny - which perhaps gives an indication of what sort of person takes up the hobby in the UK].
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UPDATE: Within a few minutes of this post going up, Mr Taylor blocked access to the videos section of his website with the Skanky and Clive video. That will make it a bit difficult then for him to use it to spread his anti-archaeological message through the other ("archie backstabbers") video on that page (and yesterday he blocked access to the 'documents' page where he described his grievances with the [real] PAS and treasure process which accompanied it). You can, for now, still see the anti-archaeological video on YouTube I expect.
Now what is the point of having a website for an - ostensibly - academic public service heritage organization which aims to make its findings accessible to the general public, if the website is closed off to the general public?
And I was going to put another post up tomorrow to draw attention to the corrosion products on some of those finds the pals of Skunky and Clive, Dean and Baz were showing in that video with their diseased hands. They are not at all what one would expect if what metal detectorists say is true. But it is not true and this is why people like Steve Taylor hide stuff when the material they present is used as a source of information/material for demonstration. But I've got another metal detecting topic to put up a post on tomorrow, nothing to do with Mr Taylor, but a friend of his I suspect.