So, it is a bank holiday and the propaganda encouraging us all to celebrate the Queens jubilee is now a barrage. We, in the UK, have been given an extra bank holiday to help get us into a happy partying mood, everywhere I look I see people caving in under the pressure to toast this occasion, so up goes the Union Jack bunting with a sense of can’t beat them, let’s join them compliance. Or maybe these people around me really believe in this farce, maybe they are massive royalists? Well, each to their own I guess, as long as they return that respect and don’t expect me to exchange in platitudes as to how indefatigable the Queen has been for seventy years. I will mingle at some stage this weekend and check out the free beer; I went at it a bit hard last night and the supplies are already quite low. I mean, if the royals want us all to have a party in their name why don’t they dig into their deep piles of obscene wealth and give each citizen fifty quid to get more alcohol in? It isn’t getting any cheaper you know? Also, by doing that, they would show a tiny degree of awareness that there are millions of people in this country who cannot afford to lose a day’s work. Holiday pay is not a compulsory thing in the modern world of the gig economy and zero hours contracts. If this family want to endure beyond this current monarch, they need to drastically shift position, stop being the ingrowing toenail of the UK.

It is not as if I can meet the royal family on a musical level, I mean they let Brian May play amplified guitar on the roof of their house. Do I need to say more? If that poodle permed poser tried plugging in on my roof, he would be splattered on the pavement outside quicker than you can say “flash a-haaa.” Talking of freaks, one of my cultural highlights of the month has been Judd Apatow’s comedy drama from 1999-2000, ‘Freaks And Geeks’. I confess to being unforgivably unaware of Apatow’s acclaimed name in movies but, in my defense, my attention does overwhelmingly focus on music, other art forms get less attention than they deserve. Anyway, I became aware that Apatow was someone I wanted to pay a bit more attention to last year when I tried a Netflix series called ‘Love.’ That too had the Apatow name attached and I went to it because I had a thirty-minute window each day ideal for comedy drama, ‘Love’ fit the criteria. On paper it can sound a little too light, a three series portrait of two young people who fall in love. The genius was in the phenomenal number of times the writing captures a moment in loves journey we all go through. Seemingly unimportant occurrences that might only show fleetingly in your life then vanish forever forgotten, Judd Apatow bottles and writes about so believably.

One of my favorite early episodes in ‘Love’ shows the lead male character irreparably distracted at work all day, checking his phone every few minutes to see if his love interest has replied to a message. She does not and he is barely able to function as every aspect of the happiness he had been sailing on slowly ebbs away until late on, elation as the text arrives with an apology and an explanation for the delay. He is punching the air with joy as closing credits play out to Elvis Costello’s ‘Lovers Walk,’ making for a drama and music combination that has a simple, effective punch. Surely anyone who has had a meaningful relationship has lived that moment? This is what Apatow does so well, he understands the nuts and bolts that make us all tick and present them in a brilliantly entertaining way.

It has been a real pleasure to see how twenty years ago, on one of his earliest pieces ‘Freaks And Geeks,’ Judd had already tapped into those aspects of his work. The series is set in a high school around 1980 and stands as a charming meditation on the anxieties, traumas and golden moments of teenage life, without ever falling into the syrupy or judgmental. Just as with ‘Love,’ you start to believe in these characters and understand their development. The laughs are consistent and the acting is of an unbelievably high standard, especially when you consider that only twelve of the eighteen episodes made were aired before cancelation in 2000. So many of these names went on to glittering acting careers; Linda Cardellini, James Franco, Seth Rogan, Jason Segel, Becky Ann Baker, there was even a young Shia Labeouf in one episode.

So, there you have my jubilee recommendation if you are, like me, motivated to enjoy something a little more worthwhile than toasting a family largely out of work yet funded with ridiculous amounts of wealth just so they can look at the rest of us and say, “we’re better than you, now bow down.” If you want to toast someone who really has shown resilience and dedication to her craft, why not look at Nina Nastasia, who makes a more than welcome return to new music making in 2022 after too long away. Her story really is one of stoicism and endurance (for further reading on Nina’s return follow the link here ( https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/may/12/songwriter-nina-nastasia-abuse-grief-psychosis-john-peel-steve-albini-laura-marling ). Nina features in the monthly playlist, along with the usual 74 other selections which can all be enjoyed here: