In Bed with the Detectorists: The British Museum's PASthetic Response to Comment

Mike Heyworth announces:

Looking forward to chairing the meeting to guide the future direction of @findsorguk https://twitter.com/tostig1066/status/1196726558670675969

and meanwhile I guess I, for one, will never know how it turned out, as I find this on following the link the CBA director gave:

"Blocked, you cannot observe or read the tweets of the user @findsorguk ..."  [but then, neither can they see what I write about them, which shows how interested they are in any kind of heritage debate about portable antiquities issues - about as much as their 'metal detecting partners']

Now, what kind of British Museum 'outreach' is that? I guess then I will not hear anything more substantial from them about the archaeological values of "buttons as artefacts in their context" as it really looks like this is revenge for my pointing out that celebrating "international button day" and "collecting" by a public-funded British archaeology outreach organisation is not a particularly useful way of promoting any kind of archaeological values. Please note that the response of the PAS to a request that they be more transparent and honest with its audience is simply to block observation to dodge (perfectly justifiable) criticism.

I trust I am not alone in believing that the "future direction" of any official response to Collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record in the UK does not lie in institutional dumbdown, spin and obfuscation. Any institution going down the fakenews path, ignoring justifiable concerns raised by its activity, deserves to be scrapped.

PASthetic. Just PASthetic.