It’s been another eventful week on the video desk with stories as diverse as a show at the Grand, a gadget company’s Christmas range and the Black Country derby all falling under the glare of our cameras.Plenty to talk about.

But as ever the thing I really want to address is something that has worked its way under my skin.

Last night I was at the Civic Hall with girfriend Georgina, and friends Dude (so named for reasons too convaluted to go into here) and Debbie, to watch Australian band Jet.

It takes something special to get me to part with my money for gigs these days but having seen them perform an absolutely nuclear set at Birmingham’s Carling Academy last November I had no hesitation in handing over the cash for a second offering.

Now let me say at the outset Jet were in good form again last night, despite the slightly dodgy sound quality at the venue.

But despite my best efforts to lose myself in the music I could not fend off the growing irritation at what is becoming a widespread phenomena at gigs – people filming them on mobile phones.

My objections have nothing to do with copyright – rather the irritation at having my view continually blocked by someone’s forearm as they raised their mobile to take another picture or video clip of the band.

At one point in the gig there were hundreds of phones littering our eyeline.

And for what?

To produce pictures of such poor image and sound quality you can’t tell whether it’s Jet or the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band on stage.

I was unfortunate enough to be stuck behind a fat bloke (yes I know that’s not politically correct but I’m in no mood to call a spade anything other than a spade) wearing a W.A.S.P t-shirt (are you sure you were at the right gig pal?) who spent the entire gig either taking pictures or looking at them.

The likelihood is that some of his or others’ images from last night are already up on YouTube.

And there we come to the crux of the matter.

That website is without doubt a modern day phenomena, a milestone in modern culture.

Much of its content is also total garbage.

I have no doubt that nothing filmed by gig-goers at the Civic last night is worth watching back today either on the web or their phones.

But sadly YouTube promotes the concept that all content, no matter how cruddy, is worthwhile.

At the same time the explosion of user-generated-content is creating a culture where people are more concerned with documenting events than just purely enjoying the experience of being there.

Instead of clear, uncluttered memories, they are left with a series of grainy, poorly focused, badly shot films they will eventually sentence to delete – a shoddy substitute for the real thing.

The offshoot of this frenzied scramble to capture everything on camera is that the rest of us who just want to enjoy the moment have to view things through a forest of arms and phones.

If that’s the brave new world then stop it now – I want to get off.