John Winter Blog Comment Update

It took him four hours to get around to responding to my comment:

"I feel that your presence will prove to be detrimental to my blog and your comment has been removed".  Regards / John=

Here is my contribution to the discussion of the 1993 text in all its alleged detrimentality:  

Paul Barford 18 August 2013 at 8:25 am

Your comment will appear after being approved.

Paul Barford here, I’d first of all like to thank you all for this discussion of John’s post, most enlightening. There are two things I admit I do not understand though.
The first is what the “obvious reasons” are that preclude “naming the guy in Poland”. What is “wrong” with using a person’s name to refer to them in a civil discussion? The name is Paul Barford, not “Wally”.

The second thing I do not understand is why you all seem quite happy with this text’s “direct their quests in useful directions”. This surely is precisely what Heritage Action and myself (for the past 13 years in my case) have been suggesting should happen, and so far there has been strong opposition to the idea. I am glad to see that you now all seem to be accepting this without quibble (John, who was the author of this article?).

That “other point of view airing its way out of Poland” can be found here, if John will allow the link in order to further the open discussion of the issues which is surely what we should all be interested in: http://paul-barford.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-past-is-too-important-to-be.html (the post currently above it might be relevant too).
Thanks  Paul Barford (aka Paul Barford).

Reply

How "detrimental" can it be to point out that my name is Paul and not Wally, that there is an interesting element of the discussion about which we can agree but that seems to have been bypassed in the discussion, and that there is more on the topic on another blog? Awfully "detrimental" to what in particular? Free and frank discussion of the issues, to the very kind of interaction between archaeologists/conservation and metal detecting which the article is discussing, that's what. Obviously it's nice when somebody else writes about it happening, but a different thing entirely when artefact hunters have to put their money where their mouths are and actually get on with the job.

TAKE A GOOD LOOK at this behaviour, for these are precisely the sort of people the PAS wants to grab more and more millions of public quid to make into the "partners" of the British Museum, archaeological heritage professionals and to whom they want us all to entrust the exploitation of the archaeological record. Take a good look and decide what you think about that as a "policy".

PS - Mr Winter, you may not consider it convenient to allow me to comment on your blog, but any time you or any of your fellow detectorists wish to comment on mine, whether you agree or disagree with what I say, please feel free, I'm not "blocking" you. You might like to start with sharing your thoughts on the two points I made above. Unlike metal detectorists, I am not afraid of frank and open discussion of the difficult issues that really need to be discussed, and I am having difficulty understanding the position of those that claim they want to work together with archaeology, but refuse to talk  about the nitty gritty of the issues. Are all these glib declarations and posturing just a big scam after all? A Portable Antiquities Scam? 

UPDATE 18th August 2013:
Well, it just goes to show how one can be so wrong about people. Mr Winter turns out to be no different from the rest of the band of people who go out with metal detectors to find things to collect. You may read his explanation to his fellows of why he rejected the above comment here, together with the usual tekkie name-calling ["Pedant from Poland (better known as Warsaw Wally)"]. That smacks not a little of hypocrisy when we recall that just a few days ago Winter was chastising other metal detectorists for this, indicating that detectorists who went along this road were merely demonstrating their own inadequacies in a debate in which they were out of their depth.* Now he's resorting to it. I'm sure we'd all be interested to hear what the gentleman has to justify his remark:

"His comments are always controversial, often untrue [..]" 

"Controversial" means that I do not always say what detectorists want to hear. But, what is "untrue" in the above comment? Surely if anything is untrue in what I said, it would be easy enough to demonstrate that ("I cannot be arsed" replies Winter). It seems to me that Mr Winter shows his wit to have been coloured by the company he keeps. So be it. He is however still at perfect liberty to express his opinion over here, though in order to excuse himself from this, and thus getting out of his depth maybe, he has declared "My policy has always been not to engage with him in any way. I hope that you approve of my action". I am sure they do, John, absolutely sure. Run away and play with the rest of them.

* In case he now deletes it: "I'm no fan of Paul Barford, but I wouldn't condone the foul-mouthed abuse he gets from some detectorists. All they are managing to do is display their inadequacies. Far better they said nothing than continue on a campaign for which they will never win and are woefully unprepared and outclassed". Yes, John - it is obvious that the resisting irresponsible detectorists WILL lose in the end, and along with them, you will all be losers.