201. The Spaceman (complete B1 story)

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This is the complete B1-level story of The Spaceman (first published in 2022)
Comprehension questions for story
1) Why was Max Headroom angry at the beginning of the story?
2) What were the space-time doors?
3) Who was the old man in Max's bedroom?
4) Why did Max and his wife, Sheena, separate?
5) Do you think Max and Sheena got back together again?
I'll give you the answers at the end of the story.
Think about this question below. You can send your written answer at the link at the top of this page "send me a text" (mobile phones only)
If you as a much older man or woman came to visit you now from the future, what would he or she (you) tell you that you should stop doing before it's too late?
Transcript.
The transcript below is for the first part of the story (until you hear the music). Listen carefully to the rest of the story and try to answer the questions 2 to 5 above. (Answers at the end of the podcast.)
Max Headroom felt very annoyed. As he looked out of the side window of his tiny spaceship*, he could clearly see the red paint falling off the back wings. Max remembered the words of the advertisement at his local spaceship* garage.
Special offer - this week only!
Small-sized spaceships painted at half-price!
Why hadn’t he taken his spaceship* to the garage last week? Now it was too late for the special offer.
Max turned away from the side window and looked forward through the front windscreen. Bright stars filled the black space ahead of him. It was another wonderful weekend away in space for Max. He really looked forward to his weekends.
Max opened the computer screen and turned on the display. He could now see the space social network groups and who was online. Max found a few of his friends. Dekker was in his own spaceship*. He had just left the planet Gonda. Baxter and Bleeper had been in space since Thursday and were close by. Max touched Dekker’s avatar on the screen. Dekker replied immediately.
‘Hi, there, Max! How are you?’ said Dekker.
‘Fine,’ answered Max. ‘Good to hear from you, Dekker! Let’s do some space travel!’
‘Sure!’ said Dekker. ‘I’ll contact Baxter and Bleeper. The space cowboys are gonna have fun! Wahoo!’
They enjoyed going to the typical holiday planets around Vega with their hot and sunny weather, luxury hotels, enormous swimming pools and noisy night clubs.
However, Max and his friends chose to go to a completely different planet this time – a holiday planet called Bluewater. Not many people travelled there and Max had to choose a different flight route.
First of all, he had to fly past the planet Darkhole, which was where strange non-humans* lived in dirty, smelly houses. They hated visitors from other planets and if they had the chance they would attack and rob them. Even the space police wouldn’t go to planet Darkhole.

At https://www.practisingenglish.com/ I offer learners of intermediate-level English, grammar help and exercises and other English learning pages.
https://www.practisingenglish.com/
My latest novel for learners of B2 English is called The Tudor Conspiracy. You can see it on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/33Axu2N
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Be back soon with another podcast!
Mike Bilbrough (Secondary school English teacher and Doctor in English philology)