Clowns are funny people, they frequently speak and write nonsense, but to make people think it has a modicum of credibility they shamelessly boast about their abilities and brag about their honours. Like the Modern Major General, this one can write love poetry in five modern languages ("in addition to Latin, Greek and studies in extinct ancient scripts found on coins"), that one has the largest private collection of dugup Seleucid coins this side of Galatea, the bossy one served his country in the Air Force while a fourth one wrote a chapter in Kate Fitz Gibbon's book and knows Arthur Houghton. So, they want you to believe, everything they say must be treated as having the authority of a grave pronouncement of sage elders and never questioned.So it is that these folk (Peter Tompa and his sock-puppet-Arthur Houghton, 'What's his "Provenance?"...', Cutural Property Observer (sic), Sunday, October 6, 2013) expect me to play the same game, boast about how many publications, where I've dug, who I've been to bed with, that kind of stuff.
But what do we know about Mr. Barford's own background or "provenance" if you like? [...] Arthur Houghton suggested that CPO ask the following questions for Mr. Barford to answer.Obviously the Director of the American Cultural Property Research Institute has nothing better to do with his time. Apparently it somehow bugs them that in my profile I refer to myself as an "archaeologist". From their other writings, one gets the clear message that these clowns (though they know nothing substantial about them or the discipline) hate archaeologists. Rather than accede to the harassment and imperious demands of Houghton and Tompa and append a copy of my CV (parts of which I consider to be personal data), I've decided to change the profile. "Bearded cat-lover". My qualifications for wearing a beard are known to those who saw me without one. My qualifications as a cat lover can also be vouched for by many.
That should remove any controversy, and now we can get on with discussing what I say about portable antiquities, rather than the constant ad hominem rubbish these people utilise to avoid discussing the views. These things have absolutely no bearing on what I write here.
I have no obligation, nor the inclination, to justify myself before the likes of Tompa, Welsh, Sayles, Hoghton or any of their guffawing metal detectorist mates.
Sock-puppet-Houghton's second question concerned why I went to Poland. Well, that is personal - is nothing to do with politics - and has absolutely no bearing on what I write here on my blog in a changed country nearly 30 years later.
Thirdly, Peter Tompa, the paid lobbyist of two international numismatic associations asks:
"Does Mr. Barford have an undisclosed financial interest behind his commentary?"Absolutely none. If I took money, I'd not be able to write what I think, but what my paymasters want me to say. Mr Tompa, that would be intellectual prostitution. Maybe other jobsworths will lower themselves, but I certainly could not accept the position where I am forced to write nonsense or avoid discussing something for money as (for example) a trade association's whore. What about you, Mr Tompa?
Vignette: Culture and propiety - Miley Cyrus.
