The return of the revenge of the son of biggest week ever

Apparently there will be a lunar eclipse tonight. So if you find yourself in a place with a pretty clear sky, you'll be able to observe the Earth's shadow fall across the moon and make it go a funny pinky-red colour (more here). Anyway, we are not astronomers or cosmologists, but we do have our very own earth-shattering/shadowing event that comes into view only once every few years, and that event is known as Biggest Week Ever. Last week we sold a record amount of drinks, hence the name of the event, and we'd just like to take this opportunity to thank you for helping us reach this mythical target. Biggest Week Ever will return later in the year (we hope), this time accompanied by a massive asteroid on a collision course with Ben Affleck.

Homegrown

When you're looking for a posh shop, there is none posher than Mr Al Fayed's famous corner store, located on many corners in Knightsbridge. We've sold our drinks there (Harrods, just in case the clues weren't good enough) for quite a long time, and have long enjoyed a happy relationship with the people there. So it gives us great pleasure to announce our special grow-your-own smoothie offer. Harrods is currently holding a Fantasy Gardens promotion, so we thought it would be nice to give away a grow-your-own smoothie with every purchase of our drinks in the food hall. In the unlikely event that you are slightly intrigued by what a grow-your-own smoothie is, click here for total enlightenment.

Nu shooz

We learned something new this week, namely that the Mayday Bank Holiday weekend is a great time to go out and buy some new shoes. But rather than just tell you who bought what, we thought we'd bring back our favourite game, 'Whose Shoes?' Click here to play and win some drinks.

In other news...

Here's a picture of a nice man called John, who often brings us liquorice and biscuits, and last week brought us the flowers of the week. And if you're fed up with bruised and blackened bananas, we'd like to pass on a solution to your soggy woes - click here. Finally, the winner of last week's drinks was Mike. His thorough description of the reason why one shoelace always breaks before the other won the day (it's got something to do with enemy gunfire and tropical heat).

On the buses

We like adverts, especially ones that cost millions of pounds and feature pop stars fighting lions and doing football tricks. Sadly, our budget would only stretch to Bob Carolgees and Spit the dog, so rather than make Bob and Spit hang around with co-stars such as Pink and Britney, we thought we'd just take some nice pictures and write some words about our drinks, which you can see in our new adverts. They'll be on the side of buses and in other places throughout the summer, and the main thrust of this campaign is to encourage people to buy more of our drinks. Pretty revolutionary, but they're the sort of risks you've got to take in the cut-throat world of Business™.

Of course, this wouldn't be the innocent news without a massive competition. So we'd like you to send in the best picture you can possibly take, with the proviso that it should feature you and one of our adverts. You can mock our advert, you can faint in wonder or you can position yourself so that you have cleverly created the illusion that you are wearing a bus, complete with our advert, on your head like a hat. It really is up to you. The best picture will win a month's supply of our drinks, with the two best runners-up getting a nice case of drinks each. Send entries to mycameraneverliesanymore@innocentdrinks.co.uk before the end of June 2004.

A horse called horse

Here are some pictures of horses drinking our smoothies to cure their arthritis. Right here.

Save the carrot

Our seasonal recipe for spring - oranges, carrots and mangoes - has been quite popular. People have said some nice things about it, but ultimately, when spring ends, it's time for this drink to disappear into the sunset. Of course, we don't want to take it away if people really want it to stay. So if you have anything specific to say on this subject e.g. "if you drop that carrot recipe I'm going to come round and attempt to staple stuff to your bum", we'd love to hear it. Please send your thoughts to savethecarrot@innocentdrinks.co.uk

Things to make you wonder

Did you know that there are more permutations in the order of a pack of regular playing cards than there have been seconds in the history of the universe? Or that Amanda won our 'whose shoes' competition last week (answers here)? Or that we are a bit short of things to say, so we'll just sign off now rather than make some things up.

Lost in translation

We love it when we're in magazines and newspapers. For starters, it proves to our parents that we haven't just made up all of this stuff about running a nice little drinks company. And it also makes us feel quite proud of the kind things that people say about our drinks. Over the years we've had bits of press in The Times, Cosmopolitan and Fish & Chips International, so we're no slouches at getting our faces onto the printed page. However, even Fish & Chips International must stand aside for now, as we reveal our first ever bit of Japanese press. We can't tell you the name of the magazine (mainly because it's in Japanese). But you can have a look at it right here, and if you can read Japanese and are the first person to tell us what it's called (send answers to mrmiyagi@innocentdrinks.co.uk), a case of drinks is all yours.

Smartin

We'd just like to take the opportunity to welcome a new person to Fruit Towers. Martin is here to do lots of IT stuff that nobody else really understands, and we have no doubt that he'll be impressing us with quite a few strange new words and acronyms over the coming months. Here are three facts about Martin:

• he's a "horrific golfer"
• his favourite computer program is Visual Basic
• the strangest thing he's ever eaten is chips (made from potato, not silicon)

Sting for your supper

You may consider the stinging nettle to be your enemy, especially if you are my brother and can remember the time I pushed you off that white fence into a big patch of them. Sorry Matt. Anyway, we're here to tell you that nettles can be your friend. Be Nice To Nettles Week starts on 19 May, and the website contains lots of great tips including a good recipe for soup. Have a look here.

Flowers, flowers everywhere

Check out the flowers of the week right here. And here's a quick thank you to everyone for their 'save the carrot' emails. Due to an overwhelming response, we shall be looking at ways of keeping this recipe available year round. Finally, do you remember a few weeks ago when we said that we didn't want to do any more celeb-spotting features? Well, we're sticking to it, apart from mentioning the fact that Brett and Simon saw Rustie Lee last week. Too good to ignore.

Fruitfully yours

We love it when our drinkers write in and tell us all sorts of interesting titbits about themselves, like what they did at the weekend, the nice girl/boy they secretly fancy or their jokes. Well, we'd like to get to know you a bit better, so please can you tell us your top three ranking fruits. Five answers, picked out at random, will win themselves a case of drinks delivered to their workplace. Send your decisions to oohitsreallyhard@innocentdrinks.co.uk

Dunc the hunk

Sorry, but we couldn't resist a boy band-esque title to introduce the newest member of the innocent family. Here are a few random facts about Duncan, who is going to help grow the innocent love in all of he nice stockists up north.

• he's from Grimsby (not that we'll hold that against him)
• whilst out fishing last week, he saved a lamb from drowning
• he only sweats out of one armpit due to some nerve damage he once suffered.

If you see Duncan on his travels, don't forget to wave, say hello and point him towards any animals in distress.

Motorway madness

Driving for any distance can sometimes be a pain, especially if it's a journey you don't want to make (e.g. work-related or going to see a relative after you've forgotten a special occasion). We've tried to make it a little less painful and a lot more healthy for you by getting ourselves stocked in lots of motorway service stations. You could even pick up a few extra bottles, pop them in a cool bag with an ice pack, and take them as a gift for said relative. You haven't got any excuses now.

Flowers of the week

This has always been a popular little section of the news, but this week we found ourselves up against The Chelsea Flower Show. We were stumped as to how we could go up against peonies, dahlias and roses, not to mention breathing the same air as the gardening demi-god himself, Alan Titchmarsh. We knew we could either go along to the show ourselves, or compete by buying an immensely large floral arrangement. We took the easy option, so if you're visiting the show, you should be able to find us at the refreshment stands.