2 . NEW STORY CONTEST

Ah, the New Year — a time for visiting friends and family as we ring out the old, ring in the new and imagine all the new adventures that await us in the year ahead.

Who knows what you’ll find when you open the door to your dryer or gaze up at the night sky? Will you write about a visit from a mythical creature, or maybe a lost animal? Will the visitor cause a problem — or solve one?

Whoever your visitor is, every buggy in Cricket (an American children’s magazine) Country will be gathered around the mailbox, awaiting the visit of your best story — just 350 words or less, please — featuring a surprising or unexpected visitor. Happy New Year!

Contest Rules

Your contest entry must be original. Ideas and words should not be copied.

Your entry must be signed by your parent or guardian, saying it is original, that no help was given, and granting Cricket permission to publish prize-winning entries in the May 2024 issue or on our website.

Be sure to include your name, age and full address on your entry.

Only one entry per person, please.

If you want your work returned, enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope for each entry.

Incomplete entries cannot be considered. Your entry will be incomplete if you forget to include your age or the signature of your parent or guardian that confirms that your work is original.

Your entry must be received by April 25, 2024.

Send entries to Cricket League, P. O. Box 300, Peru, IL 61354. (No faxes or email submissions, please!)

4 . Gyms that profit most from the January rush

Every year, like clockwork, many people go through the same routine. On December 26^th and January 1^st, as the fog of cheese, chocolate oranges and champagne lifts, regret creeps（悄悄出现）in. Online searches for “get fit” and “lose weight” increase.    1    “Intent typically takes seven to 14 days to turn into reality,” notes Humphrey Cobbold, chief executive of Pure Gym, Britain’s largest gym chain. So this week will be one of the busiest for the gym industry globally.

Many gym recruits（新成员）will have their new sportswear on for high-intensity interval training. In the basement of Another Space, a club near London’s Leicester Square, music pumps and light flash as a trainer shouts instructions to a group of mostly young women. They are pushed through bursts of burpees, handclap push-ups and various kick and punches at boxing bags. The training is murderous.    2    Such high-end gym can charge up to eight times as much as low-cost ones, based on two visits a week over a year.

They are at one end of a fitness market.    3    America’s market leader, Planet Fitness, promises “the best value on the planet”, and has over 10 million members; its shares rose in 2017. One in seven people in Britain is a gym member, and 35% of private memberships are low-cost, up from 14% in 2013, according to Leisure DB, a data firm. Mid-range clubs, meanwhile, have fared less well. Virgin Active recently sold its less luxurious facilities in Britain to avoid being squished（压扁）in the middle.

Pure Gym expects soon to reach 1 million members. Part of its appeal is that, unlike traditional gyms, members are not bound by a long contract. “We have taken a £500 decision and turned it into a £20 decision,” says Mr Cobbold.    4    Most new joiners do not plan to spend much money. But gyms proper on non-attendance. According to IHRSA, an industry body based in Boston, fewer than half of gym members in America hit the treadmill（跑步机）at least twice a week—until the exercise cycle begins anew the following January.

5 . The TheatreWorks Writers’ Lab:

a development space for worldwide writers

24-HOUR WRITING COMPETITION

A programme of TheatreWorks Writer’s Lab

LET YOUR IDEAS SPARK

5 Stimuli

24 Hours

1 script

Are you up for it? Anyone can discover a new you through the competition!

The 24-hour writing competition organized by TheatreWorks Writers’ Lab is back for its 9th year!(Held at the peaceful seaside resort, Aloha Changi, the challenge is on again to stimulate one’s heart and mind to produce a script within 24 hours.)

TheatreWorks Writers’ Lab has for the past 16 years discovered and nurtured new talent, and provided research and development opportunities for existing writers.

Dates: Thu 29 July (4 pm) to Fri 30 July(4pm) 2010

Venue: Aloha Chanji

Competition Categories     Prizes for each category

Youth Category 1st Prize: $800

15 to 18 years 2nd Prize: $500

Open Category 3rd Prize: $200

19 years and above Merit Prize: $100

Registration Fee Registration Deadline

Youth-$25   15 July 2016

Open-$25     Limited to 100 places

Visit www.theatreworks.org for a registration form.

6 . In sport the sexes are separate. Women and men do not run or swim in the same races. Women are less strong than men. That at least is what people say. Women are called the weaker sex, or, if men want to please them, the fair sex. But boys and girls are taught together at schools and universities. There are women who are famous Prime Ministers, scientists and writers. And women live longer than men. A European woman can expect to live until the age of 74, a man only until he is 68. Are women’s bodies really weaker?

The fastest men can run a mile in under 4 minutes. The best women need 4.5 minutes. Women’s time is always slower than men’s, but some facts are a surprise. Some of the fastest women swimmers today are teenage girls. One of them swam 400 meters in 4 minutes 21.2 seconds when she was only 16. The first ‘Tartan’ in film was an Olympic swimmer, Johnny Weissmuller. His fastest 400 meters was 4 minutes 49.1 seconds, which is 37.9 seconds slower than a girl 50 years later! This does not mean that women are catching men up. Conditions are very different now and sport is much more serious. It is so serious that some women athletes are given hormone injections. At the Olympics a doctor has to check whether the women athletes are really women or not. It seems sad that sport has such problems. Life can be very complicated when there are two separate sexes!

7 . Kobe Bryant

After 10 seasons wearing the No. 8 on his back, Kobe Bryant will become No. 24 next season. The reason for the surprising decision by the Los Angeles Lakers super guard last week has become a hot topic for debate.

Bryant wore No. 8 when he was in early high school, but he changed to No. 33 in his senior year. He switched to No. 8 when he was selected by the Lakers in 1996, and has been not changed since.

Bryant has refused to explain the decision until the end of the play-offs. So guessing Bryant’s motive has become a popular game among NBA fans and newspaper columnists.

There are all kinds of speculations. Many say that Bryant wants to leave the past behind and have a fresh start. He has often been criticized for playing to benefit himself and not the team as a whole. Others say that he may be trying to compare himself to Michael Jordan. Jordan was famous for his No. 23 jersey. Some, such as NBC Sport columnist Michael Ventre, argue that it is “all about money”. Bryant will make more money by selling new jersey to his fans.

Some speculations are more about fun. For example, there is an opinion that Kobe is actually just a dihard fan of the popular TV drama “24”.

All this talk has turned the number changed into a major issue. It seems that there is a lot of fuss over something that should be pretty simple.

Jersey numbers have their own special significance in American sports, especially basketball. Players choose their number when they join a team and they usually stick with that number for the rest of their career. When a great player retires, his team will honor him by retiring his number.

To some extent, the jersey is the player, and the player is jersey. Thus, when you see the famous No. 23 for the Chicago Bulls, you immediately think about Michael Jordan. A No. 32 Miami Heats jersey recalls the image of Shaquille O’ Neal, and the Houston rockets’ No. 11 belongs only to Yao Ming.

Lots of stories are behind players’ jersey number selections. Jordan said that he chose No. 23 because it was roughly half of 45. Jordan’s elder brother wore the No. 45 in college. Yao Ming once revealed that the No. 11 stands for two people in love—meaning him and his girlfriend Ye Li.

8 . Charlie Boice from Georgia has been crowned this year’s “Papa” Hemingway at a look-alike contest. The 56-year-old retired air traffic controller won the annual competition at Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Florida—a place Hemingway often visited during his time in Key West in the 1930s—on his 15^th attempt.

Dressed in a wool fisherman's sweater in a bid to imitate photographer Yousuf Karsh's famous portrait of the world-famous American writer, Boice looked extremely happy as he was declared winner. He was chosen as the winner by the judging committee made up of former “Papa” Hemingways, all of whom look strikingly similar. Speaking to CBS Miami, Boice said. “Winning the Hemingway Look-Alike Contest is fantastic. I feel like a champion. Hemingway was a champion.”

During the contest, the 122 competitors had to take to the stage and attempt to convince the judges that they were the most similar to the “Papa” character of Hemingway, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1954 but committed suicide in 1961.Many did so by performing poetry or singing.

The competition, which helps to raise money for a Hemingway Look-Alike Society-administrated college scholarship fund, is a highlight of the annual Hemingway Days festival honoring the author. Just before the competition, an unusual event Running of the Bulls took place with the look-alikes. The video made by Florida Keys News Bureau shows the white-bearded men chanting and singing as they march through Key West's historic downtown with several life-sized, but fake bulls.

Also on Saturday, a California community college professor won the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, which attracted as many as 857American and international entries. Riba Taylor of Palm Springs won the first award with her story titled “Between My Ribs.” Lorian Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway’s granddaughter, said Taylor displayed deep sympathy in her story to the woman who lost her love, a life changed and the power of memory.