Focus on UK Metal Detecting: Blissful Superficiality

Blissful superficiality seems to be the order of the day over on the Blisstools Detector User's Discussion forum. "Big Nellie" in the "this bloke is hilarious" thread hyperbolically likens discussion of the effects of current policies on artefact hunting on the archaeological record to Nazi persecution and genocide  ("He will be lining up detector users and gassing them next...). That comment seems a little unnecessary. Meanwhile, one "Blueboy" [who himself seeks "respect"] reckons that, as he "sees it", I am not all that "well informed" about artefact hunting ("Its the same old story (yawn) we destroy everything"). Well, how "Blueboy" sees it is that:

Most detector users use their metal detectors on grass or arable soil or beaches of no real archaeological importance, there have been some amazing finds and archaeological  sites discovered by metal detectorist's over the years. 

Well, apostrophe abuse aside, there seems to be a rather odd non sequitur here that these "amazing archaeological sites" are found by metal detectorist who do not search on archaeological sites.  How does he see that working? Also of course that there is no castle, dolmen, roman villa preserved to the second floor in a field does not mean that the field is not a place of archaeolfgical importance - that really should be up to the trained archaeologist to decide on the basis of a little more information than the presence of a hoiked artefact or three. I wonder what Mr "Blueboy's" Code of Responsible Artefact Hunting says about going on grassland. The official one basically says keep off.

Blueboy says: 

I and all my club mates have regular dealings with the PAS recorder, he collects records & brings them back if they are not treasure.

The PAS Finds Liaison Officer is supposed to be doing a lot more with the nation's fifteen million quid than merely being a "recorder" servicing metal detecting clubs.* There is also a great difference I feel between PAS-partnership with people who allow FLOs to take stuff away from club meetings and the detectorists who take stuff to the FLO. Also from this, "Blueboy" seems unaware of his own responsibilities in the case of reporting Treasure, it is not up to the FLO to decide what is and what is not "Treasure". 

Blueboy offers the information that he was "involved in digging out a hoard of Roman religious artifacts [sic] (now in the British museum)". This would seem from his description to be the infamous "Near Baldock Hoard" found in 2002 "in an undisclosed field at Ashwell End in Hertfordshire".  He says in typical tekkie-speak that this: 

would still be there and unknown if it was not for a metal detector user going over it. (we called the powers that be out to help/record of course).

Nice of them to let the BM "help" eh? Yes, so if it had not been hoiked out by treasure hunters who got a 35000 quid reward for their hoiking, the site would not have been denuded of the archaeological material now disassociated from this still uninvestigated site, and the nighthawks would not be scouring the fields for the bits missed in 2002-3. I really do not see this as any kind of preservationist victory, rather the opposite. Maybe Mr Blueboy (would this be the finder Alan Meek?)  would like to tell us whether and when the site (including the logs of their searches of it) was fully published? Or has it, a decade on, gone down the same memory hole of unpublished Treasure findspots as the other umpteen discovered since?
* and it would be good if metal detectorists saw it like that.  

PS is it not a trifle comical a guy hiding behind a pseudonymous screen name writing as if to me: "By the way Paul whoever you are..."? The name is Barford, Paul Barford. 

UPDATE
The same "Blueboy" apparently based somewhere in the Hertfordshire area now writes:  

Must print this off and show it to our FLO, he will probably have a laugh as well.

Is it not interesting that the PAS-partner is so confident sure of the answer he will get if he asks a member of the Scheme staff (a "Finds Liaison Officer") about concerns about the depletion of the archaeological record by artefact hunting. His archaeological partner organization is primarily concerned to get as many hoiked artefacts as they can to bulk out their database. Thus, "Blueboy is sure (how?)  that all a member of the public is likely to hear from the UK's archaeology outreach scheme is that those who raise such issues are in some way comical. 

I assume "Blueboy" is talking about Julian Watters of the PAS' St Albans branch (all the surrounding FLOs are of the female gender). That particular FLO has commented on this blog just once, and when I challenged what he said, scarpered off. I'd like to ask Mr Watters (or whichever FLO is meant by anonymous "Blueboy") to come back and explain why he finds the issues raised on this blog "laughable" (if indeed he does). Perhaps we can have a proper statement from the PAS on their take on these issues. It seems little to expect for fifteen million quid's investment in having an outreach Scheme for informing the public on portable antiquities issues.