"I Don't Want to Talk About it"

The Face of Bonkers Britain

In a festive moment last night, Donna Yates of the Glasgow Trafficking Culture project linked to a Telegraph text on another Treasure find and bemoaned the fact that the journalist "fails to get the problems detecting causes". Curious as to what she considers those to be, I tweeted her asking to enlarge and she let slip an odd comment about metal detecting and then said she thinks I should "know that" (unclear whether that meant she thinks I know what she thinks - and I do not because I do not recall her writing in any detail about it, or that I should agree with her - which again I do not). My reply:

Nope, but interested to hear it now. can you do a blog post? I disagree by the way.

Her reply was that she sees her blog as for "research bits and small histories". But surely is not artefact hunting with metal detectors a valid research topic in its own right as well as in context of the other things Trafficking Culture works on (whatever that is)? Why does this attitude persist that what is considered looting in every other country under the sun, even in the USA, when it happens in Britain is somehow anorakish and even to some, beneficial when it takes place within the shores of Bonkers Britain?

[lack of links to actual tweets deliberate, it's the general point that interests me here, not what Dr Yates personally thinks about metal detecting]