Safety In Numbers
So, Nottingham Forest have stayed up somehow…!
Results haven’t been the best, but we me managed to scrape together the points needed for safety. Of course it wasn’t that easy (it never is at NFFC). We could’ve made it safe by beating Blackpool at the weekend, but we only came away with a draw. Norwich played Reading on Monday, a win for Reading meaning Norwich couldn’t catch us. We’re on 50 points, they’re on 46. After a nervous wait at the Mail Centre, news shortly came through that Reading had scored, then quickly scored another. Cue happiness by the few Forest fans at work! I hope we sort things out in the summer. We never seem to be that active in the summer breaks, but the team needs a shake up.
It’s also good to know we’ll have the extra local derby of the Leicester game next season, as well as a return to the scene of one of Forest’s greatest games, Peterborough United’s London Road – the place where Collymore helped fire us back into the Premiership in 1994. It also looks increasingly likely that we’ll be playing Newcastle next year, along with maybe Middlesborough and Leeds from League One. If nothing else, it’ll be an excellent year in the Championship. So many strong teams!
I had some time off last week. Well earned and needed that it was, what I couldn’t have accounted for was how excellent the weather would be. While late April temperatures are always warm and sunny, i got the lucky break of that lasting all week long. Not a great surprise to me that the minute I go back to work, the weather takes a turn for the worse. I can’t help it if the sun likes me. It also made the night’s drinking in honour of Iain’s birthday on Saturday all the more pleasurable. Iain and Aleks have been up in Nottingham. He came up for his birthday on the Sunday, so we took the time out to visit some fine Nottingham drinking establishments! I had an over reliance on Jack Daniels & Coke rather than a pint of lager (after the horrific calorie contents it contains of which I’ve read of). It was nice at first, but Whisky drunk soon makes me act like an arse – as if any help was needed for that…
I don’t expect many watchers of Heroes to be reading this, but any that are please look away now as I’m about to talk about the (amazing!) season finale. I get the episodes available to download after buying it from iTunes, but knowing that next weeks episode is the finale, i couldn’t wait. It’s a week in front in the US, so I downloaded it. It was a great end to what I think has been a great season. It’s been building up to something shocking and I wasn’t disappointed. Sylar is the best villain there is. He’s so evil, but such a great character. When it became clear a few episodes ago that he was using his shape shifting power to impersonate Nathan Petrelli in order to come in contact and ‘be’ the president, you just knew that Nathan’s chance of redemption by saving the day would go awry.
Obviously things didn’t go smoothly for Sylar and towards the climatic point of the episode, Nathan and Peter Petrelli team up in order to defeat Sylar together. Something bad was on the cards when Nathan says to his brother “I love you, Pete”. Studying Media Studies at school has sadly taught me a thing or two about how tv shows are made and telltale signs as to a major plot point… ANYWAY, Sylar ends up slitting Nathan’s throat. The lingering image of Nathan’s lifeless body sitting in a chair telling us that, unlike other deaths throughout the series, this one was for real, Nathan Petrelli was dead! Oh no!
But the way they got out of it was genius, and sets up a potentially excellent Series 4. Matt Parkman used his physic powers of persuasion and brainwashing to make Sylar shape shift into Nathan and stay as him. So now Sylar is Nathan. Still with me? A clever way to keep Sylar in the show without seeing Zachary Quinto for a bit perhaps? He did go filming Star Trek after all, maybe it bit into the filming of Heroes, who knows. The little taster of the next ‘volume’ that they have at the end of the series sees ‘Nathan’ show a few Sylar traits (his obsession with clocks), as well as Tracy Strauss reappearing in water form, starkers (!). The internal conflict of Nathan next season could be excellent. I have high hopes. Just make Hiro get his power back with no side effects!
Lost is also nearing the end of the season. Just three more episodes left, with the final episode being two hours long – Yay! It’s a slow burner this year, but the clip of this weeks show looks promising, Guns! Jack! Faraday! Can’t wait!
I’m having fun fitting into old clothes again, after losing 2 stone these past two months. I’ve cut out snacks, cut down the portion sizes, increased fruit and veg and exercise a whole lot more. Give me one year and i’ll be a skinny fucker.
