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First up was a program about the 'perfect fish and chips' with the annoying bloke from master chef who says 'Cooking doesn't get harder than this' a lot. The English one with the specs if you need further identification. He was making posh fish and chips which involved catching fresh fish and frying your chips approximately 50 times.

Another bloke was making cheap fish and chips. He used frozen fish and oven chips. 

They then got a random group of people to try the two sorts of fish and chips. Predictably (and annoyingly) the people chose the posh fish and chips. We then got endless testaments from said random group about how quality is worth paying for and they would definitley pay for the posher stuff. 

Oh yeah! Its easy to say that when you are being fed for free by the BBC (yep that means that all us licence payers were feeding these bleeders!) In reality when they realised the posh fish and chips cost about a fiver a portion to produce (so that's before the restaurent puts their mark up on it) and they would have to spend about 3 hours over a steaming hot deep fat fryer to make those brilliant chips I think they would change their tune!! 

Anyway I calmed down whilst watching another show about some people going on 9.50 pound holidays in caravans. Note that on top of the nine pounds 50p you had to pay extra money if you wanted optional luxuries such as running water, electricity, bed clothes and towels. In the end I couldn't help feeling that they would have been better staying at home and going out in their home town.

Finally and most annoyingly was a documentary concerning benefit claimants. This being the BBC I was looking forward to some left wing propaganda about how hard done by benefit claimants are (I'm pretty sure that was the Daily Mail's write up in the TV guide).

The premise was that the BBC got 4 benefit claimants and teamed them up with 4 honest tax payers. The tax payers got to nosey into the benefit claimants lifestyle and then took them out to see what the world of work was all about.

On one level this was quite entertaining telly but I couldn't help but feel that we weren't looking at four normal claimants.

 For instance the first guy they must have searched very hard for. He was allegedly living on job seekers allowance (70 odd quid a week) and yet had an apple mac, laptop equivalent of an apple mac, an iphone and a flat screen telly. He also lived rent free with his grandad; wore a baseball cap most of the time (we later found out that this was because his hair was receding); had a permanent smirk on his face; and to put the tin lid on it he had a degree in Media Studies. Oh yeah did I mention he had a bit of an attitude about the sort of job he wanted.

He was a Daily Mail article just waiting to happen. I'm not going to try to justify the fact that he's receiving benefits but I would question if his lifestyle and attitudes are typical of people on job seekers allowance.

The other three claimants weren't nearly so cliched (although we did have a single mum) but all were long term unemployed. I don't think most benefit claimants will be as long term as these (I think one guy hadn't worked for over 20 years - although in his defence he did seem to have bought up 3 children (from two different mothers) on his own).

Its easy to pick extreme examples and then extrapolate that all unemployed people are like this.

At one point the presenters (two people who were apparently from the Apprentice) did point out that at the moment its reckoned there are 5 unemployed people for every vacancy. In addition at the low skill end of the market there are 45 people on average going for each job.

With the best will in the world those figures don't add up (even a guy with Media Studies could tell you that). So are we going to punish people because they can't get a job in these circumstances? Well yes seems to be the answer judging by various opinion polls and vox pops.

It seems to me that people are being influenced by propaganda from politicians and various media outlets including the allegedly leftie BBC. Meanwhile the Labour party find it easier to jump on the 'kick the poor while they are down' bandwagon than actually put a case for a little compassion and empathy.

In the documentary all the tax payers made passionate cases for the dignity of labour and seemed to be determined to work no matter what cost to their personal lives. This of course bought out patronising approval from the presenters (who didn't seem the type to have actually experienced minimum wage labour themselves). A couple of the benefit claimants did point out the human cost to the tax payers but I think this was seen as bad form.

It seems to me that the subtext of the program was that the only choices anybody had was to either swan about on benefits or to become wage slaves only seeing the spouse as you came in from your night shift and they set off for the day shift.

We see people killing themselves working long shifts to make ends meet. Whilst others can't find jobs.

Would it be too much to ask to balance it out a bit by giving some people more (some) work to do and let other people take it a bit easier than they currently have it? The problem with this is that for all concerned they then wouldn't earn enough money to fund what you or I would consider a reasonable lifestyle because of the low pay at the bottom end of the job market in relation to how much other things (principally a roof over your head) cost these days.

Here's one final thought for you. A fair percentage of benefits go towards paying for accomodation. The real people who are siphoning off large portions of benefit money are landlords. Now is that because of the price of property or is it because they are creaming off big profits? Either way I think this is one of the roots of the problem at the moment - the huge property bubble that nobody has the nerve to pop.

Does the fact that your house is worth a lot of money really help you? If you move you would have to pay a similar amount of money. Everybody needs somewhere to live. Solutions wouldn't be simple because the current generation of house buyers are up to their eyeballs with massive mortgages which would cause issues if their property was to lose value and put them into negative equity.

My view is that somehow property prices need to be driven down and assistance directed at people in negative equity (possibly some sort of write down as happens when a company goes bankrupt). An expensive process and dangerous for the banks - but perhaps a better use of the money that is currently being created as part of Quantative Easing or given to new house buyers to start the process of getting them drowning in more debt.

Anyway enough of this political stuff. More recently I've been out sampling some local music. I went to the 360 club which is a night put on at the Library (which is a pub in Leeds) to showcase new bands.

I'm a sucker for new music so I went to see the Stolen Mondeos. The drummer of said band is my mate Chris' nephew. 

First up though were a band that I was more familiar with - the Incredible Magpie band. I've got a feeling that tonight the number of magpies involved was 'one for sorrow'. News filtered through that the drummer hadn't turned up. Then it turned out one of the accoustic guitars had a dead battery and had to be played through a mike. The band soldiered on but there set was marred by lots of horrible feedback. For the record they were pretty solid though. One new song was particularly good with its fake endings and Shack/La's feeling. The verdict from the Stolen Mondeos audience was reasonably positive in the circumstances.

Next up were another band I was keen to see. I'm hearing good things about Jack's Attic - mind you it could just be because Mrs Windbag works with one of the band member's auntie. I have to say I wasn't disappointed. The singer, lead guitarist and drummer are all dynamic presences. The songs are quirky and catchy and the performances good. Its hard to pin down the style - I thought maybe a little bit emo although one accoustic number reminded me a touch of the Pixies.

There were supposed to be four bands on but it seemed that the nominated headliners had taken fright and left the venue. They thought that the crowd would leave along with the Stolen Mondeos. I suspect they might have been right. Surely the better solution would have been to let the Mondeo's headline?

Anyway the Stolen Mondeos were left to close the show. Firstly that name is pretty good isn't it? If I was to be honest they weren't the strongest band on the bill in some respects. But given that they'd pulled approximately 95percent of the audience (including me) only a complete curmudgeon would deny them the headline spot.  

This is not to say that they were bad at all. They had some good songs (my favourite was 'the Vicious ones'), they played solidly. I particularly liked the rythm section. I also loved their rough charm and great attitude that shone out for all to see (particularly the rhythm guitarist who doesn't seem to have got over the nineties ending - with his Liam Gallagher haircut and Stone Island anorak).

If you are looking for the next big thing I'd recommend you go elsewhere but if you want an unpretentious good time with a band who play with passion and do their own songs then I can heartily recommend the Stolen Mondeos.

Check out one of their songs here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmC33t4dyP0

PS Just in case you think that you might have heard the name Stolen Mondeos before. Well it turns out I've talked about them before. See here!

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