The word Ballyshughmacuttery first appeared in a posting on Facebook as a follow-up to a comment made by Darren Seaton, a presenter with Rock Radio NI

He was celebrating BBC 4 (UK TV) playing four different documentaries featuring Heavy Metal acts, on one night.

One such documentary featured Bruce Springsteen of which ES a friend of Darren’s posted: “Think I’ll dip out on the Springsteen. Cannot get into the man. He just reminds me of a farmer from Ballyshughmacuttery. Sorry folks!”

On seeing Ballyshughmacuttery my fancy was tickled and I googled it expecting to find a place name in Northern Ireland or something from Father Ted.

I found nothing.

So I felt an experiment was need to see how a new word could find its way around the Internet.

The next port of call was Twitter and the first person to respond was the delightful (and funny) comedian Grant Sharkey:

Listening to @xanphillips’ radio show sends shivers up your Ballyshughmacuttery #Ballyshughmacutteryisawordnow

Not only a response but a hash tag! Ballyshughmacuttery had hit the big time.

Thing were looking up and by the morning we had more developments with Ian Fisher, also a presenter from Rock Radio NI , declaring this on Facebook:

“The word Ballyshughmacuttery, by it’s appearance, is an Irish place name and by definition must exist as a place. If it doesn’t exist as an area on the planet, then the word cannot exist as a word as it is descriptive of nothing.

That being …the case, you can Google it till the cows come home, but as the word does not exist then what you are typing cannot exist therefore the whole thing is a figment of your imagination, and your original post, and, if that is the case, my reply, do not exist.

In order to solve this, and to prevent a collapse of the space/time continuum, with all due respect to String Theory and the Parallel Universe theory, as from 08.13 tomorrow morning my Rhubarb patch will officially be known as “Ballyshughmacuttery” Google earth……get the cameras out!!!!”

At 8:30 pm on 21st Jan 2011 a word was born, it is already a verb and a place name. Where it will go next? The story continues…

This page has a Tiny URl  http://tinyurl.com/Ballyshughmacuttery

Continuing our underlying theme that there is a great song writing scene on the UK’s south coast, the second edition of ‘Xan Phillips presents…‘ features south coast singer and songwriter Dave Pen.

He first came to my attention in the duo Birdpen, an act that is dark and inventive in the studio while on stage they stand out as totally professional unit, that produces a sound so large it fills every inch of available space in the venue.

Occasionally Dave would mention he was in a collective called ‘Archive‘ who were doing quite well in Europe. As my brief at the time focused on the south coast it took a while to investigate this strand of his career, especially as the albums were just available on the continent.

It was only when I bought Bridpen’s debut album from Amazon France did I realise how modest Dave had been as, on the cover, was a sticker proclaiming ‘On, Off, Safety, Danger’ featured ‘Dave Pen from Archive’

This success abroad was on the back of Archive’s albums ‘Lights’ & ‘Live at the Zenith’ just before Archive’s 2009 release ‘Controlling Crowds parts I-IV’ which is a double album of rare beauty.

Ironically it’s also the last recording they made under their deal with Warners who, for some inexplicable reason, have dropped the band just at the wrong time. It’s a bit like the Beatles being ditched after Sgt. Peppers.

Controlling Crowds will feature in later editions of ‘Xan Phillips presents…‘, however for this episode we concentrate on Birdpen’s debut album ‘On, Off, Safety, Danger’ and Archive’s ‘Live at the Zenith’ which the French Rolling Stone magazine stated was one of the best live recordings around.

We’ve also got more music from the UK’s south coast including our hottest export to Europe and America: Band of Skulls. Along with them you can investigate Betika, Boe Weaver, The Shanklin Freak Show, Big Num, Scarlett Soho and The Moulettes.

Xan Phillips presents is brought to you by Playdio.com and is currently available on Spotify.

If you are into metal and rock then the album ‘A State of Indifference’ by Bournemouth based ‘The Longest Day’ is the album for you.

Produced by Romesh Dodangoda (Motorhead, Funeral For A Friend, Kids in Glass Houses) and sleeve artwork by Marvel artist Boo Cook it has reviewers like Dorset Rock Online pondering whether they should: “draw comparisons to other unsigned local artists, or major label acts such as Silverchair, 30 Seconds to Mars and Muse.”

www.dorsetrockonline.com/?p=5415

The Longest Day

Portsmouth group ‘The Visitors’ have released their second album ‘”Daylight Breaking” and it is an excellent follow-up to their debut  “Travelling”. The songwriters Ross Murphy and James Dyer have evolved their sound with a slightly heavier feel and seems like a natural progression.

www.the-visitors.co.uk