Water Running
Another Sunday another 90 minutes in the pool, churning away with the submarine Nano for company. Started with Bjork’s Army of Me, ended with Belle and Sebastian’s Blues are Still Blue, visiting Ministry, The Sugar Cubes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chemical Brothers, Wolfmother, Dead Kennedy’s and Dan Kelly and the Alpha Males amongst others along the way.
I usually head to the pool at about 3ish and generally find that I am left alone, mainly because the kids are all up the other ended playing with the Tarzan rope they have set up on a Sunday afternoon. But I was feeling restless and ended up down there at 1pm, unfortunately for the first 45 minutes or so there were quite a few kids so there was a bit of ducking and weaving to be done 
Meetin’ the Devil at the Crossroads
For Sale: One Soul, 33 years old, used, a little tattered around the edges but generally in pretty good condition for its age.
If I am not returning to running in 2 weeks time you may just find me, like Robert Johnson (though some say it was Tommy Johnson) wanderin’ on down to the crossroads at midnight to sell my soul to the devil. Though not in exchange for the guitar playing prowess sought by the bluesman, rather I’d just be happy with a strong pair of legs.
Then again, there may be an alternative to condemning myself to the fiery pits, I could try my luck with a spot of Hoodoo
The crossroads is the most popular place to perform a specific hoodoo crossroads ritual to learn a skill — to play a musical instrument, for instance, or to become proficient at throwing dice, dancing, public speaking, or whatever one chooses. As this ritual is usually described, you bring the item you wish to master — your banjo, guitar, fiddle, deck of cards, or dice — and wait at the crossroads on three or nine specified nights or mornings. On your successive visits you may witness the mysterious appearances of a series of animals. On your last visit, a ” big black man” will arrive. If you are not afraid and do not run away, he will ask to borrow the item you wish to learn. He will show you the proper way to use the item by using it himself. When he returns it to you, you will suddenly have the gift of greatness.
The man who meets people at the crossroads and teaches them skills is sometimes called “the devil” He is also called “the rider,” the “li’l ole funny boy” or “the big black man,” black in this case meaning the actual colour, not a brown-skinned (“coloured” or Negro) person. Because he shares qualities with and derives from a number of African crossroads spirits (of whom Legba, Ellegua, Elegbara, Eshu, Nbumba Nzila, and Pomba Gira are some African and African-diaspora names), it is a common scholarly conceit to equate the crossroads “devil” with Legba, but that is utterly unheard of in the oral folk tradition.
So I have a back up plan, all I have to do is take a pair of Trance 6’s down to the old Cross Roads (would the corner of Middleborough and Canterbury Roads suffice I wonder, or would that lack the necessary ambience, perhaps I need to go out bush) and wait for Bekele, Terget or Mottram to rock up and give me the gift of greatness, and hopefully fix my legs in the process.
Not that I am desperate to run or anything…..
But while I was churning away in the pool I could see people in the gym on the treadmills. How dare they mock me, wasting their perfectly good legs indoors on the treadmill like that, they don’t deserve to run 
