Richard Shindell pays for Doctor Who's Tardis to orbit the Earth

It's the time of year when this blog likes to do a story about a satellite. Fortunately Richard Shindell has stepped into the breach.

At The Old Queen's Head in Islington, where he was doing a Green Note gig last night, he asked whether there were any Doctor Who fans in the house and, after receiving a slightly muted response from an audience of folkies wary of being hailed as geeks, explained that he was one himself, as is his daughter.

"Did you know that there's a project on Kickstarter to send an actual functioning satellite into space in the shape of the Tardis?" he asked.

"I've donated $300 because that's the threshold above which you get all kinds of loot: T-shirts, a blueprint of the satellite and - best of all - five megabytes of space on the Tardis's hard drive. I'm going to upload this song of mine about satellites. I'm going to do this because it's an excellent use of $300."

It's hard to disagree.

* American bloke runs off with Steve Knightley's guitar

* If you thought this post was good you might also enjoy this interview with Shindell I made earlier.

* This story regenerated and landed on the surface of the Guardian newspaper.

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley