Detectorists 2

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nigelswift N
nigelswift Nov 1, 2015 14:55:16
Replying to Rhiannon

You're right that it's not damaging like the other two (and one of those was produced by PAS in a vain (as it turns out) attempt to save its own funding.

You could argue it two ways - they find almost nothing so no-one will emulate them or they ALMOST found something hugely valuable so lots of people will go out and do the same.

I wonder if Mr Crook will be able to resist the money shot - finding something that makes Andy and Lance millionaires?

My other gripe is I don't think PAS or recording has been mentioned. OK, the idea is that they've found nothing worth reporting but that in itself is conveying a false and damaging story. As you know, our (supported) estimate is that detectorists find 0.69 of a recordable artefact each per week, so the 8 Danebury club members would be finding 22 recordable finds a month. That's a lot of knowledge loss not to be depicting on the telly in just one of hundreds of (vastly larger) clubs. And it's why they'd all be banged up in most countries, sad, amusing or lyrical though the programme may be!

S Sanctuary
Sanctuary Nov 1, 2015 15:49:12
Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:
You're right that it's not damaging like the other two (and one of those was produced by PAS in a vain (as it turns out) attempt to save its own funding.

You could argue it two ways - they find almost nothing so no-one will emulate them or they ALMOST found something hugely valuable so lots of people will go out and do the same.

I wonder if Mr Crook will be able to resist the money shot - finding something that makes Andy and Lance millionaires?

My other gripe is I don't think PAS or recording has been mentioned. OK, the idea is that they've found nothing worth reporting but that in itself is conveying a false and damaging story. As you know, our (supported) estimate is that detectorists find 0.69 of a recordable artefact each per week, so the 8 Danebury club members would be finding 22 recordable finds a month. That's a lot of knowledge loss not to be depicting on the telly in just one of hundreds of (vastly larger) clubs. And it's why they'd all be banged up in most countries, sad, amusing or lyrical though the programme may be!

I think you are fireproof when it comes to fighting your corner Nigel. No-one else's views seem acceptable to you if they vary to the smallest degree and you even find something wrong when the good guys play by the rules. I admire you for your tenacity and concern but worry that you are showing obsessive behaviour which is not good for you.

R Rhiannon
Rhiannon Nov 1, 2015 17:23:13
Replying to nigelswift

Hmm. Ok I do take the point that that club would realistically find reportable things. But isn't it better to portray them as losers who don't find anything, as is.

Or, supposing there were to be reportable things in the programme and the writer slipped in a sentence about 'oh and we'll have to contact the FLO about this' - would that be enough? It's not a public education film. One can't pin the irresponsibility of detectoristss on a comedy writer.

The detectorists you endlessly have to deal with, they know what they should be doing. Anyone who gets into the hobby and buys a magazine or looks on a website, they KNOW what they should be doing ie reporting things, only looking in certain locations. If they don't actually do that, it's because they're a bunch of tossers, not because they 'didn't realise', not through lack of information being out there.

I don't think they'll find anything btw on the programme. I should bloody hope not at least. And if they did, they'd definitely go the right way on whatever moral dilemma of reporting it raised. They would do the right thing, because that's the heart of the programme really?

H Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Feb 4, 2016 11:34:25
Replying to nigelswift

nigelswift wrote:
You're right that it's not damaging like the other two (and one of those was produced by PAS in a vain (as it turns out) attempt to save its own funding.

You could argue it two ways - they find almost nothing so no-one will emulate them or they ALMOST found something hugely valuable so lots of people will go out and do the same.

Or you could argue it another dozen ways that

1. They go out a find a 1970's ring-pull from a "fruit-based drink" eg. Tango, Lilt or Cariba. One discovers that Lance has an encyclopedic knowledge of progressive ring-pull variations in fruit-based drinks cans. And their shape which so differentiates them from standard Cola's and suchlike.

2. They could find the Mayor's lost chain-of-office which he had to abandon when he was visiting a dogging site one night. Intriguing. There were condoms there too - they didn't set off the detectors but do constitute a genuine health hazard and the BBC was perhaps criminal in its lack of condemnation of the discarded condoms issue and that of people in high office getting themselves into "compromising situations". Thus was the Profumo Affair born. Let us not forget.

3. to 12. I'll spare you these. Think them up yourselves. You could start with this one if you like... Lance digs after a beep on his machine and pulls out a metal item... "latin-inscribed brooch still with the enamalling!" "What does it say?" "Status Quo." The issue of the disposable nature of pop culture and band's obligation to clean up after their fans... Feel free to continue...

nigelswift wrote:
I wonder if Mr Crook will be able to resist the money shot - finding something that makes Andy and Lance millionaires?
Maybe you have missed key points in the series.

Lance already is a millionaire. He won the lottery at a point before Series One began. This is not about money... He only really wants what he cannot have... his now grown-up daughter back and all the lost years... Lance is really filling in time and the unfillable yearning space left by a lost past when he's out detecting and chatting to Andy.

Andy is only wanting a job as an archaeologist and to save his marriage. He is chronically depressed and sees little chance this ever happening. By the end of Series 2 it has happened. Mostly due to picking up a couple of old clay pipe fragments from a flower bed on the way into the interview his wife set up for him. Andy had up until then lost all hope in his future... when he's out chatting and detecting with Lance, Andy is finding an alternative hope to the life he sees slipping away from him. It is a minuscule hope but it seems to offer more hope than his current employment reality.[/quote]

nigelswift wrote:
My other gripe is I don't think PAS or recording has been mentioned. OK, the idea is that they've found nothin
reporting... [/quote]

Exactly. They keep finding rubbish. We keep seeing it. The table of finds is heart rending "buttons through the ages" etc. The only point in the series where they are trying to dig on a scheduled site... it is MOD site. A World War Two plane-crash one. Which they obtain legal permission to do.


And as for real treasure. Johnny Flynn posted one of these to me for £6. Lovely.

http://www.discogs.com/Johnny-Flynn-Detectorists/release/6925479