Glad rags at the ready

As we all know, Mums and Dads always like to know what you're up to.  Even after you've left home, bought your first car and married the love of your life, they still want to know you're looking after yourself, eating well and don't have an overdraft.  We also get very maternal/paternal when it comes to our drinks, and get all teary-eyed when our drinks do well.  This week saw our blackcurrant juicy water walking away with Silver at the Great Taste Awards 2004 and our very own mangoes and passion fruits smoothie scoop Bronze.

Romance is still in the air

(For those of you who haven't found that special someone, and have been upset by the all the recent talk of romance and wedding celebrations, please look away now).  We were rather surprised to learn we've become the number one place to visit for wedding anniversaries*, as proved by Geoff and his lovely wife who popped in to say hello on their second wedding anniversary.  We'd like to point out that this isn't our Geoff (of Geoffcam fame), as in the words of Jason Donovan, there would be too many broken hearts in the world.  Geoff is a big innocent fan and it was warming to know they wanted to share a small part of their special occasion with us.  We can't wait for them to pop round with babies soon, and bets are being placed that they may do a Gwyneth/Chris on us and call their first born Mango.

Feet first

After all of those weddings, parties, camping trips we took over the extended weekend, our feet are feeling a little bit tender.  No amount of foot baths, peppermint lotion or gel-filled soles are going to get us through this one.  Poor Emma's feet are still recovering from Fruitstock, and, horror of horrors, she hasn't been able to wear any heels for almost a month.  She's getting a tad upset about this situation, and if you see a large collection of size eight high heels on eBay, you know the prognosis hasn't been very good.  Please send all of your positive thoughts Emma's way, and whilst you're at it, click on the link for one of our more popular competitions - Whose Shoes?   The top three winners with the correct answers will win a case of our finest drinks and a recipe book.  Entries to be sent to hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk before 5pm on Friday 3rd September.

Extra, extra

We're looking for some nice new people to join us here at Fruit Towers.  Why don't you check out http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/jobs to see if anything takes your fancy, and who knows, your feet could be appearing in the next edition of Whose Shoes?  The cusp of celebdom awaits.

*author unknown, limited edition

Call the cops

There was mass consternation at Fruit Towers last Thursday when some unexpected visitors came a-knockin'. Those of us who had been out to lunch came back to discover lots of policemen and women with full Kevlar body armour on, hanging around our front door with a look of no mercy on their faces.

What's happened? Have we been burgled? Has Brett been arrested for stealing a packet of Polos from the newsagent's? Did someone do some graffiti in the toilets?

These were the questions that galloped through our suspicious minds, and there was a feeling of real concern that something bad might have happened while we'd been out buying our sandwiches. But it transpired that we had done nothing wrong. The police were just using our car park as a hiding place before they went and did a raid somewhere in the locale. And they had a bit of a laugh and drank lots of smoothies while they waited, which pleased Emma as it meant she could go outside and look at the nice policemen every ten minutes or so. Please observe the law here

Ding dong

Marriage is not something to be entered into lightly. That's what my Dad said anyway. And his wise adage rings true at innocent, where married people are a bit thin on the ground and people seem somewhat scared to commit.

So it gives us great pleasure to say that two of our number will return to Fruit Towers as married people in the very near future, seeing as they're getting hitched this weekend. First up the aisle will be Camilla, who will be pledging her troth to Westie on Saturday somewhere in the English countryside.

And next Monday it's Richard's turn. He and Melinda will be reading love poems to each other in a personalised service that will also feature some interpretative dancers performing a 'movement' piece in which they hope to encapsulate Melinda and Richard's special bond.* We hope that they all have days to remember.

More wedding stuff

You might recall that last week's competition asked you to name who you'd most like to marry. The winners were Alison M, James S, Linda B, Jenny R and Adam K.

Our favourite answer came from Jenny, who said "Being 52 and therefore being obliged to choose between Alan Titchmarsh, Sacha Distel and Daniel O'Donnell, I choose Alan T because: Sacha has recently gone to live above clumps of Stephen's Nan's hair (i.e. the clouds); Daniel is Irish and I already have an Irish partner so that would be boring; that leaves Alan. I'll be very happy with Alan. I look forward to exciting times in the potting shed."

Please discuss

Observant people may have noticed that we have a new bit on our website. If you click 'Bored' and then 'Please discuss' you'll find yourself in a place where you write all of the stuff. In fact, it's a bit like a message board except for the fact that we upload your thoughts every day after we've checked them to make sure that there are no rude words or instructions for making homemade guns.

We have to say that we are loving this bit of our lives, because we get to choose the questions that have been troubling us and you get to provide us with great answers. So please don't be shy - go have a look and post your thoughts, and we'll give you a monthly round up of the best bits every month, with prizes for our favourite posts.

Flowers of the week

The flowers are back and are in the capable, bronzed, just-got-back-off-my-holiday hands of Adam and Ailana.

Bonnie Scotland

Jess will kill us if we don't ask you this, so if you live in Scotland, or have friends and family there, we are looking for offices full of people who would like some free smoothies. No catch, no funny business, just free drinks delivered to your workplace if you're in Scotland. Email jessica@innocentdrinks.co.uk if you'd like some.

* this is not strictly true

The bigger picture

We've said it before and we'll say it again. Our news is not a forum for gratuitous self congratulation. No, what we try to do is focus on the events that are happening out there in the wide world that shape our common existence, and that bind humanity together like a thick, strong rope in the school gymnasium of life. So without further ado, we'd like to talk about Fruitstock again. Although it happened over a week ago, we are still getting nice notes and thank you cards from people who hung out in the park with us lot. Here's a small selection of their words:

• We had a brilliant time on Saturday!  Hope you will repeat this every year.  Thank you.  DG, 12 August '04
  
• Thanks for the GREAT festival you should do it more often, like every day.  Jack, London, 12 August '04
  
• Don't even think about not putting Fruitstock on again next year, ok? Fruitstock is to become an institution!  Best of Wishes and Big Strawberry Love, Yatts xxx, 12 August '04
  
• To all at innocent, what a wonderful festival, we stumbled across it by accident (nice and early thankfully) and came back for the second day!!!!!  ID, 12 August '04
  
• Went along to fruitstock, had a laugh, very impressed with those guys with the 'eglu', bought some herbs and ran away from the main stage when the 'unsung heroes came on all loud, shook some booty in the dj tent, realised I'd forgotten the frisbee and chilled out with a smoothie.  Thank you.  MS, 11 August '04
  
• Cannot send cake but just wanted to send you a big thanks for the Fruitstock 2004 festie. Had a really nice time and it was a great day out for a nice but mixed crowd - a one day Big Chill in the city. SW, London, 10 August '04

(And can we just say thanks to Rob the Hed Kandi DJ, who said it was the best gig he'd ever played and then donated his fee to our chosen charity. Whaddaguy.)

Lost and found

Sometimes it's the small things that reaffirm your faith in the human race, like bus drivers who let you get to your seat before pulling away sharply from the bus stop at 50mph. In our Richard's case, it was the person who found his wallet at the weekend. Richard celebrated his stag night/day on Saturday, and by the evening had become somewhat emotional; so emotional in fact that he put his wallet down on a bit of pavement for safe-keeping and then went home. Luckily for our stag, his wallet was handed in, complete with large amount of cash, many miles away at Sevenoaks police station. And all of that cash can now be used to buy some drinks for all of his friends (i.e. us) in his last two weeks of freedom. Thank you kind stranger.

Little and fluffy

Last week we set a pretty tough competition and asked you "What are clouds made out of?"* There were a few questionable answers, but most of them were pretty good. Our favourite one was from Stephen, who said "clouds are made of my Nan's hair". The other winners were Kieron N, Richard B, Melanie B, Laura H, Kevin G, Cameron S, Glenn H, Sarah M and Claire T. Well done everyone - you win innocent ponchos and the fashion-envy of all your friends.

This week's competition picks up on the theme of marriage. Please tell us who you'd most like to marry in the world (apart from your current partner as that would be a bit predictable). Send your answers to zsazsagabor@innocentdrinks.co.uk before 5pm this Friday 20th August - the five best answers will get a case of drinks delivered to their door, and we'll try to hook you up with your dream bride/groom as well.

And finally

If you live in Scotland, your luck is in. We're going to be north of the border in the next few weeks and we'd quite like to come to your office and give you some free drinks. There's no catch - all you have to do is send your details to simon@innocentdrinks.co.uk and we'll do the rest.

* the correct answer is, of course, washing-up liquid and a bit of warm water

Didn't we have a lovely time?

Well, we couldn't really have asked for anything more. The sun shone hard for two days, loads of you came down to the park and it looked like you enjoyed yourselves, especially that man wearing the full Elvis Vegas '68 kit. As you can imagine, Fruit Towers is slightly quiet post-Fruitstock, but that's to be expected. We'll try to sort ourselves out and get some pictures up at http://www.fruitstock.com during the day, but for the time being, here are a few of our favourite memories from Fruitstock 2004

• Adam - an 80 year old lady in a bright pink dress being the sole person dancing to the theme tune from Monkey in the DJ tent
• Rowena - my Mum commenting how much like the great Russ Abbott our newAdam is, "right down to his hat"
• Lucy E - the warm breeze at 9.00pm last night
• Ed G - two 6 or 7 year-old girls doing the hip hop bounce on their parents' shoulders whilst Ty played the main stage
• Louise - the totally impromptu capoeira session, over near the innocent ice cream stand
• Lucy T - a man coming up to the security guards with his young son and asking where the giraffe rides were
• Travis - the ham and cheese pancakes

PS our Lucy lost her favourite bright pink woollen blanket on Sunday. And in the spirit of going naked at free festivals, Katie has only just realised that she removed and left some of her clothes in the park (a light blue innocent  t-shirt, a pink singlet and a pair of quite low slung dark blue 'Gripp' jeans). Email lostproperty@innocentdrinks.co.uk if you found any of this stuff. Equally, if you lost anything at fruitstock, please let us know at this address too.

PPS here are some pictures that the nice people at Hed Kandi/Philosophie have put on their site, featuring them playing some tunes and Elvis having a dance
http://www.sacrebleumusic.co.uk/

Danish bacon

Recently our Will has started to do a bit of research on eating and drinking habits in other countries, just in case we ever get our act together and sort out selling our drinks outside the UK and Ireland. He looks very impressive, poring over complicated charts and graphs every day, and he has made some very important findings. But nothing so far has got him as excited as the following webpage, which yields some extremely valuable findings concerning pork consumption per capita, and he really wanted to share his findings with you http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/foo_por_con_per_cap

Weather report

As mentioned elsewhere in this week's news, it's been quite hot. However, with heat comes mugginess, sweaty pillows and the chance that we might get a big old thunderstorm without much warning. So this week's competition offers you, the viewer, the chance to win one of ten limited edition innocent ponchos. Made from stylish clear polythene, and sporting a nice innocent logo and a few comedy words, these ponchos are surely the thing to be seen in this summer when it's raining, or maybe just when you're in the shower but don't want to get too wet.

To win a poncho and nice copy of our Stay Healthy, Be Lazy book, please answer the following question:

What are clouds made out of?

Send answers to marshmallow@innocentdrinks.co.uk by 5pm on Friday 13 August.

(The fact that we have a few spare ponchos knocking about has nothing to do with the fact that it didn't rain during Fruitstock and thus didn't need to give any out.)