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

A group has been started on Facebook to bring to people’s attention that before rushing into a General Election, in which MPs will get a ‘good kicking’ but solve nothing, that maybe a Government of National Unity would be able to clean up the current crisis in the UK’s Parliament.

Facebook Group: We Need A GNU

Having a GNU is not a new idea and was recently proposed as a piece of fantasy politics at the last Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth (2008).

During a debate about the financial crisis the chairman Michael White put the question to Dr Vince Cable and Charles Clark. You can read about it in his Guardian blog posting “Financial crisis may lead to government of national unity”

He also writes: “It is no longer impossible to imagine that a wider reconstruction of government might be needed if the Wall Street and world storm gets much worse. We had a wartime coalition in 1915-18, another after the financial crash of 1931, a third from May 1940 to July 1945. ”

However no one thought that the storm would unearth greed so close to home and cause such anger in the country.

Although judging by today’s events involving the Speaker in Parliament (BBC: Speaker announces he is to quit) , this article by Peter Oborne in the Daily Mail could be almost prophetic: “Ditch Speaker Martin, make Vince Cable Chancellor and freeze out the Tories… is this Brown’s masterplan for 2009?”

But no one’s plan had MPs in disgrace. Through their own making these elected members have brought shame upon their profession and seem incapable of delivering a cohesive solution.

Around the country faith has been lost in their ability to act for the people.

The UK needs politicians to work together without trying to gain points off each other; it needs the parties to stop spinning their way out of trouble by telling the truth, and the country needs to be shown that this elected group of men and women, can solve problems through collaboration and the sharing ideas.

During this crisis of confidence the UK needs a Government of National Unity (GNU): all parties facing the same problems in the same direction.

The aims of the GNU could be this:

1.Return the Houses of Parliament to a reputable state.
2.Allow time for MPs to prove to their constituents they are suitable to continue.
3.When those two objectives are reached a General Election should be called to let the electorate decide who they want in Parliament.

If you think “We need a GNU!” then join the Facebook group. If you are not a member of Facebook please add your comments below.