Some low, low news

Diets are about as exciting as clearing a paper jam from the photocopier. But we have to say that we've recently become mildly stimulated by the GI diet.

It's full of pretty sensible advice - the sort of stuff that your mum's been telling you for years. Stay away from sugary processed 'white' junk and make sure that you're eating complex carbs, plenty of fibre, lots of fresh fruit and veg and the rest. Nothing shocking or revolutionary - just some good old common sense.

So we thought we should get our smoothies tested to see if they had a low GI score. And do you know what? Because we use all that whole crushed fruit, all of our smoothies have a low GI score. Smashing news. So you can carry on drinking them with gay abandon. And if you're not on a diet, who cares?

PS the picture above is of a low GI. Just in case it wasn't all hanging together.

Some gentle, quiet news

Some news we like to shout about and some we see as part of our mission to keep making things a bit better, maybe without you even noticing. This bit of news falls into the latter category. You see, our juicy waters are now available in plastic bottles.

The more observant amongst you may know that they used to be in glass bottles. But glass wasn't the perfect material. Shopkeepers hate it when people drop glass and the drink makes a mess and someone might even hurt their toe on a sharp shard. So we've changed to plastic, which has these added benefits:

• It's lighter, so your arms won't hurt on the way home from the shops
• It won't break when you drop it
• We've been able to make the bottle bigger (up from 380ml to 420ml)
• The label's made from plastic too, so you can chuck the whole thing into your recycling bin
• Finally, we've started giving a monthly donation from the money you spend on juicy water to WaterAid

Seemed like the right thing to do. If you have any thoughts on this plastic business, mail hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk

Jobs jobs jobs

So many people needed at Fruit Towers, to make innocent a better company. One of the much-needed started today. He's called Ben and he goes something like this:

• Ben was mildly bullied by childhood friend Chris Martin (him out of Coldplay) when he was little
• Someone once poured a bucket of fish over him
• His Dad is called Ilgvars (he's from Latvia)

If you fancy helping us get better, see if there's a spot for you at http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/us/jobs

And finally...

Here are the flowers of the week. Some very pink gerberas and some other pale pink things that look a bit like bromeliads, although we're not quite sure what they are. Anyway, Jo and Raz are doing the honours. And if you're one of the first three people who tell us what those pale pink things are, we'll send you some drinks. Can't say fairer than that - hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk

Hello. We'd just like to highlight the fact that this week's news is quite long. Sorry about that. We are forming a committee to look into this verbose behaviour - they will report their findings to us later in the year.

The race for the prize

Some of you may remember Supergran, the thing we did last winter where we asked people to knit some little woolly hats for our bottles (there's more here). Well, not only did the scheme raise a load of money to help keep elderly people warm but it also won a prize. A few of us trooped off to the ISP Promotional Marketing Awards last Friday night and were quite chuffed to win the Grand Prix for the best overall promotion of 2004, beating big boys like Coke, Ribena, Dove and Abbey. We couldn't have done it without you, mainly because you knitted lots of the hats. Thanks. We hope you can help us when we do it again.

The mile long club

News from Ireland. We are now selling our drinks in RTE, the Irish public broadcast network (a bit like the BBC but not on strike) and throughout the mile-long Intel [bing-bong-bing-bing] site. This means that we are pretty close to being able to take over all computers and TVs on that side of the water. Our victory is assured. Cue disembodied sinister laughter.

Stop thief

This story didn't make the front of any of the dailies. But we reckon that it's got everything - a hero, a villain, a chase and some reasonably priced mascara. It happened like this...our Geoff was down at Boots, minding his own business and checking that our drinks looked OK on the shelves. He noticed a commotion at the checkout and saw a man sprint out of the store. Unconcerned for his own safety, Geoff gave chase, caught up with the runaway and tackled him to the ground. It turns out that the man had stolen some mascara and Geoff had undoubtedly foiling one of the crimes of this or any other century.

PS if you've seen Geoff's sunglasses, please can you send them in - he dropped them during the great chase.

Other things that happened to us last week...

Gareth had a tube ride last week where every time he got to a platform his tube was there.

Dan went for a Chinese and found a fly in his soup.

Bronte asked us to say that there are lots of job vacancies at Fruit Towers - check here for more

An apology

Last week you may remember that we talked about Boots and those cotton wool earbuds that you can buy there. We have been informed by an alert reader that we should forthwith refer to them as 'cotton buds' for the following reason:

"Considering pretty much every expert the length and breadth of the country warns against sticking cotton buds in one's ear canal (the NHS Direct website states "Don’t insert objects into your or your children’s ears. This includes fingers, cotton buds, cotton wool and tissue."), through fear of puncturing the ear drum, I think that you should refer to them as cotton buds thus not encouraging people to put them in their ears. After all, what's the point of becoming a healthy nation - drinking all these nice healthy innocent drinks - if we are then going to start jabbing bits of plastic in our ears and making ourselves deaf?"

We couldn't have put it better ourselves. And we hope your ears are feeling good today.

Goodbye

Three fine people are leaving Fruit Towers this week:

Rowena, the voice of the banana phone and avid shark enthusiast, is going back to the Lake District. She likes the peace and quiet up there, and she says that she fancies getting stuck into some hotpot too. Sounds a bit racy.

Travis is leaving us to go and work in the world of talk radio. His bad jokes and loud laughter will be missed. If you don't fancy hearing them, stay away from 1089MW.

And Bronwyn is off again. We reckon she'll be back. She came back last time after a nice long holiday. She's just playing with us.

Hello. No news is good news, unless you're waiting for our weekly update. So here it is. Please enjoy.

Yer boots

Boots are good. We like them because they help us play football. We like them because our hobnail ones lend us an air of working class authenticity. And we especially like our long leather ones with the pointy heels that we wear to the Coliseum in Halifax on big nights out. Transcending all of these boots, however, is the chain of high street chemists and toiletry providers based in Nottingham. Without them we'd be stuck for hair wax and cotton earbuds. And those nice new green meal deals - did you know that you can have a sandwich, a snack and one of our smoothies for under £3.50? Ooh nice.

And Boots is not the only shop doing exciting things with our drinks. Waitrose is now selling our detox smoothies in one litre cartons, and that lot at Sainsbury's are now selling our kids' drinks. They're all at it. Calm down, the lot of you.

Something for nothing

Everybody likes free stuff. Some people like trees, others like the ocean and some people get excited about those stinking lemon handwipes that you get on the plane. But the local government in Utrecht, Holland are against free stuff and have decided to ban people from giving things away. Our man in Holland, Henk Jan, was naturally incensed and had a chat to a Dutch programme called Premtime about why he liked giving away smoothies free. If you're in Holland you might be able to see him next Tuesday on Nederland 3 at 9:30 in the evening, baring his soul for free to a man called Prem. Go Henk.

The free press

To honour Henk Jan's generosity, we've been handing out lots of smoothies to lots of journalists and crossing our fingers, in the hope that they might write something about us. And write they did. All sorts of wonderful stuff. Some of the especially nice things are:

• We had our biggest ever French bit in a magazine known only as Elle, right next to a bit about 'la nounou des Beckham' (our photo's much bigger).
• Zest magazine has decreed June 29th a day devoted to our smoothies for kids and to our inner children; we're currently petitioning the government to take note of this wisdom, give everyone a day off work and let us all have tricycles and homemade bowl haircuts for the day. We'll happily provide the drinks.
• Real Business magazine reckons we're the third hottest company in the UK. That makes us the Beyonce* of the business world, and that's something to be proud about.

Thank you and you and you

You've been working hard recently, and we'd like to say thanks. First off, huge thanks to all of you who let us know what you think in our recent survey. We've locked New Adam in a room with all your answers, a block of cheese and some water, and told him that he can come out when he's read them all. Hopefully they'll help us make our drinks even better, and make you even happier.

Thank you to everyone who entered our Whitsun solidaires competition. After squabbling amongst ourselves for a while, we managed to choose three particularly lovely old people to receive our drinks. The winners are:

Andre, whose great-grandson William wrote asking us for help. Apparently, Andre has never met one of our smoothies, and thinks that red wine is the safest and healthiest drink.

Guy, who hates cats, birthdays and conversation, loves pears and samurais and can make small children cry using the mysterious powers of his bushy black eyebrows. All the best people love samurais.

Ellie's grandma, who fancies a gin and tonic and plays a mean hand of rummikub. Word is she's been looking after quite a few people in the small French mountain village where she lives, and has earned a rest and a case of smoothies (we can only do the smoothies).

* after Christina and Britney of course

Hello. Here's our fact of the week - no human has ever seen a living giant squid. We've only seen them when they've died and have been washed up on the beach. Mysterious.

Trains, planes and coffee chains

There are a fair few places where you can buy our drinks these days. But to this list we would like to add the following. GNER trains, Schiphol airport and Starbucks. GNER trains go from London right up to Scotland, using a network of railway tracks that are often not broken. Schiphol airport is Amsterdam's international travel hub, and therefore has to deal with millions of crazy Dutch people every year. And Starbucks is that coffee chain with the logo that features the lady and some other things which we can't quite make out (we should add that Starbucks have been stocking our drinks for a while, but they've just started stocking our smoothies for kids). So now you know.

We came, we saw...

Veni vidi vici, or words to that effect. Following in a long line of great warriors and emperors, including Julius Caesar and Russell Crowe, one of our innocent drinkers (a nice person called Shauna) went and did battle in the Coliseum this week. That's the Coliseum in Rome (not to be confused with that nightclub in Halifax). She took one of our drinks too. See.

New faces

Please say hello to Vic and James. They started working at Fruit Towers this week, both in the tough old world of sales. Vic's going to be based up north whilst James is mainly concerned with good old London town.

Here's some stuff about them:

• One of Vic's old jobs involved her selling gravy
• She likes trees
• She's just bought a 1920s cast iron cooker
• James came 3rd in the world's largest musical chairs competition
• His sister's cat attacked him at the weekend
• He's quite tall

Help the aged

Here's an interesting thing that's happening in France next week.

Usually, Whitsun would be a public holiday. But this year, everyone's going to work. All incremental revenue that businesses make on this extra working day will be given to organisations that help the elderly, an act that is known in France as being 'solidaires'. Now then, we are all in favour of this, so we want to hear from you if you have a Granny or a Granddad or just an elderly friend living in France who you'd like us to send some drinks to. Send an email to hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk stating why this lovely old person deserves some smoothies and we'll pick out the best three and send them their stuff tout suite. And if you've got a bit more time, why not write to that nice Mr Blair and see if we can have our own Whitsun solidaires in the UK next year?

Ad on in Ireland during Coronation Street ad break

Our advert is on in Ireland this week, during the ad break in the middle of Coronation Street. We have arrived.

You used to be smaller. In fact, every human spent about half an hour as a single cell. My, haven't you grown. So please enjoy your time as a (relatively) massive being.

Gin and juice

Udo is a lucky man; kind of one in a million. But a bit more like one in ten thousand. You see, Udo became the 10,000th subscriber to this here webnews at 9.04pm last Wednesday night. Udo is from Schiedam, near Rotterdam in Holland, noted for its gin and its 16th-century town hall. We hope that it'll soon be noted for the fact that Udo will be receiving a case of smoothies every month for the next year. And whether he sends us some of that gin in return, well that's his business. Well done Udo.

Don't call us, we'll call you

Springsteen, Jagger, McCartney, Andre. All the greats got their lucky breaks playing at someone else's gig. So if you're the next big thing just waiting to happen, you may be interested to know that Fruitstock, our big free festival, is happening again this year on the 6th and 7th August in Regent's Park. We're looking for an unsigned band or act to come and play on the main stage as part of our national talent search. So if you fancy getting famous or at least playing your music to thousands of people, you need to go here to find out how to enter. Good luck.

Oh la la

The best smoothies in the world (according to our mums) are now available on the nicest avenue in the World (according to Paul Newman). Indeed, if you pop down to Publicis Drugstore (133, Avenue des Champs-Elysées) you'll find our whole range waiting for you, along with a wide variety of other amazing stuff from the worlds of media, art, modern culture, food, technology. Lots more information at www.drugstorepublicis.com

Power to the people

Ideas don't grow on trees. In fact, they're usually found bouncing around people's brains, hurtling along neural pathways at the speed of sound, or something. Anyway, we've got about 70 brains at Fruit Towers and all neural pathways seem to be well-maintained and properly tarmacked. But we'd never say no to getting a few more ideas. Which is where you come in. We've popped a few questions up on the web here, and if you've got five minutes, please take a look. It's your chance to let us know how we're doing, and it'll help us decide what drinks we make next and all of that stuff.

Hello Roz and Jo

It's a lucky day when two nice people start working at your place, which is what happened to us when Roz and Jo arrived. Here are some facts about them:

• Jo speaks French, German, a bit of Dutch and some Polish
• She likes rogan josh
• She recently met Hugh Grant and thought he looked a bit skinny
• Roz got two punctures yesterday when she was mountain biking
• She once sold a Phillips Ladyshave to Cristiano Ronaldo of Man Utd
• And she used to play the trumpet

Breakfast in Hackney

Fiona has chosen a very fine Outlet of the Week. It's Mossbourne Community Academy, a new school/business academy in Hackney, London. They've just started ordering smoothies for their breakfast club, to ensure that students are eating a morning meal and are fuelling their neural pathways (that's probably enough about neural pathways for today). Check out some fancy pictures of the Academy here.