No Coke

It would seem that David Cameron, possible future leader of the Conservatives, Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands and the Republic of Bluewater, is not such a bad man after all. After enduring intense speculation about his substance intake, he has finally come clean and revealed his filthy drug secret. And shockingly, it would seem that it's our little drinks that give him a natural high (man). Cameron revealed in Saturday's Daily Telegraph that he is dependent on our smoothies. "It's true, I'm afraid," said the man who would be king. "I'll have at least one a day, usually with lunch. There's no particular flavour I go for - I like them all."

The international language of fruit juice

There's nothing quite like learning a new language. You discover many great things, such as the fact that all French people live in La Rochelle, play table football and go to the market every Thursday to buy half a kilo of apples and a monkey.

Recently we found that it was time to brush up our language skills and write our first ever multilingual labels. And after a bit of trial and error, we're happy to say that we came up trumps, or 'le trumps' as they say in Paris. Our faithful drinkers in Holland and Belgium have been asking us for them for quite a while, so it was our pleasure/plaisir/genoegen to finally get it sorted.

Hat of the week

This week's titfer was knitted by Kate's gran and is definitely worth a look - click here. And here's a bit more information about the people we're donating the money to:

Age Concern

(www.ageconcern.org.uk) who will be helping to keep elderly people warm this winter. And Extra Care (www.extracare.org.uk), a fine charity that runs social clubs and helps the elderly to stay active. They go abseiling, tank driving and sometimes they even shoot a gun or two (see picture). We love it.

Brighter than a billion suns

Our random request for information about black holes and deep space seemed to be quite popular. Information that we gathered includes the following:

Jamie says..

"When a black hole collides with a neutron star, the black hole swallows the star and grows in size. This results in a short gamma ray burst which is brighter than a billion suns, but only lasts for a couple of seconds." View cosmic footage here.

Maddie says..

"If you give your friend a clock, tell them to go and stand next to a black hole and then stand some distance away, you will be able to see that the clock has stopped ticking. From where your friend is standing, however, it will appear to be working fine. I am not sure why this is but I read it in a book once. Your friend will then be sucked into a parallel universe, so maybe use someone you don't really like instead."

Lulu says..

"If you could travel faster than the speed of light, it would be possible to travel beyond the light that emits from Earth. This means (theoretically) that you could look back in time e.g. light from the Battle of Waterloo is still travelling somewhere out in space. If you could travel past this light then you would be able to watch the battle."

Freaky.

We'd like to find out a bit more about the universe but we seem to be too busy making drinks. If you have any astounding facts about black holes, warped time or deep space, we'd love to hear them. Thanks.

Great game, great game

Not only is Bruce Forsyth a great gameshow host and a proficient tap dancer, but the man is also a prophet. For it was he who said that 'points mean prizes'. How right he was. We say this because we've just found out that for the next year in Boots you can buy any sandwich, snack and one of our smoothies for £2.99, all over the country (apart from in London where it's £3.30, probably because of the congestion charge or something). That means you'll earn 8 points on your Boots Advantage card and you'll be 11 points nearer to the trampoline/mascara/deluxe facial sauna of your dreams.

Taking the Mickey

We know some of you miss us when you go off on your holidays, but you've got nothing to worry about if you're heading to EuroDisney, as our drinks are now available in the New York Café. We're not quite sure where it is in the park, but we know there will be a nice ending and everyone will live happily ever after.

Knit'll be alright on the night

The knitters amongst you have heeded our call. So far, 352 little hats have arrived at Fruit Towers to help our Supergran project get off to a good start, which means that once they are on our bottles and those bottles get sold, we will have raised £176. This is great, but we'd like to raise a bit more money than that. So if you haven't already had a go, now's your chance. Ask your Gran if she's got any spare wool knocking about, get your mates round and have a knit-in, which is exactly what we did last week.

We're also starting a special slot to show you the hat of the week - the knitter of the week's finest hat will win a case of drinks and be entered into the grand final, where he or she will vie for the coveted Golden Needles, probably some time in December. This week's winner is Hannah, who knitted her first ever hat this week (below, far right). It shows.

Moisten your lungs

TWe know a fair bit about fruit juice. But we have to take our hats off to this Malaysian juice bar, who have discovered some fruit facts that seem to have passed us by. (Thanks to our Louise for snapping these little lung moisteners.)

And finally, we'd like to say hello to Sarah H, aka Moonface, and her baby Lily. Hello.

Hello. We'd just like to get something straight. There's nothing wrong with eating roast dinners three days in a row. Nothing at all.

Cast your mind back...

Fruitstock. Remember that? Sun shining in the park. Everyone having a bit of a dance. Seems like a while ago now, but we were given a reminder of its specialness last Friday night, when we went to The Event Awards 2005 to see if our free festival could win itself a prize or two. The good news - we won the 'most improved experiential campaign'. The bad news - we're not exactly sure what that means. And the really bad news - we didn't win the overall prize for the best event. Apparently that prize went to something called 'the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics'. Must have missed that one.

Captain Fresh Fruit

Being a superhero isn't easy. First of all, you've got to master your super powers. Then you've got to think of a super name and come up with a super-tight costume. Then you get to the bit where you think it's all been a waste, and that you'd actually quite like to become a normal human and marry the girl/boy next door.

No such worries for Captain Fresh Fruit. We are not at liberty to reveal his real name, but his 'friend' Danny sent us in this Polaroid of the masked avenger, who hopes to use his special powers to get people to drink more smoothies. We can only applaud his deeds, and we feel safer in the knowledge that somewhere out there, Captain Fresh Fruit is keeping watch over us all.

Captain Fresh Fruit

There are three new innocent people to tell you about this week:
• Mel, who is a campanologist.
• Ben, whose Dad makes Old Pig Squeal apple juice on his farm.
• And Rowena, who worked here for years, had some time off to catch up on the local gossip at home in Kendal and is now back, helping look after our drinkers and banging on about the male forearm.

Trees and how to save them

In case you missed it, our Richard wrote an article for The Independent last week. Interesting stuff, all about dodgy illegal logging in Brazil. Click here to have a look.

And finally...

Jim sent us this. It's a bit weird but slightly trance-inducing if you watch it for long enough http://www.yeeguy.com/freefall/

We found something out the other day that surprised us. You know Michael Jackson's 'Bad' video? The one in the multi-storey car park where MJ scared off a tough gang with some weird dancing (sho' nuff)? Well, that video was directed by Martin Scorsese. Apologies if you already knew that, but we felt it was worth sharing just in case you didn't.

You lucky people

Some people are born lucky. Bird poo misses them by an inch. They win big prizes at the bingo. Some of them even get to direct Michael Jackson videos. But we think we may have found the luckiest people around. They are called our Jon and our Lucy and they have just been to Central and South America to visit the places where our fruit is grown. They went to Colombia to see our passion fruits ripening on the branch, flew to Honduras to pay homage to our bananas and popped over to Costa Rica to witness the splendour of our oranges growing on the land at the foot of the Orosi Volcano, with Lake Nicaragua shimmering in the distance.

Respect the soil

Of course, their trip wasn't just a chance to send a few postcards home. We're intent on making sure that all of our fruit comes from farms and plantations that grow their fruit the right way. And this means that they should be fully audited, treat their employees fairly and respect the soil that our fruit grows in. Lucy and Jon were our innocent eyes and ears, verifying what the auditors have already said - namely, that the people we currently buy fruit from are doing things the right way. And that makes us very happy.

No fun

Regular innocent news readers will realise that this is the first time we have dedicated so much of our news to one subject. They may even be upset at the lack of pictures of small dogs wearing tiaras. But there are some days when we feel like telling you the serious stuff. The reason we started innocent was to make drinks that taste great, that do you good and that are made in a way that doesn't mess with the planet. And we reckon that you care about that stuff too, hence us wanting to let you know all about it. Slightly dumber stuff will return next week. (If you can't wait that long, you could do worse than check out http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/)

Hats entertainment

Actually, we couldn't leave you without saying one more thing. Some of you may remember our Supergran project - you know, the thing where we knit lots of little hats and put them on our bottles in branches of the fine sandwich shop EAT. Well, it's time to start knitting 2005's batch. Last year you helped us knit 24,000 hats, which helped us raise ¢G12,000 to help elderly people stay warm during winter. This year we want to knit 80,000 hats, so please pick up your needles, cast on and let the knitting begin - check www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/us/our_ethics/doing_good_things/supergran/ to find out how it all works.

PS Congratulations to Stuart J, Simon G, Mike N, Clare W and Elinor B, the winners of last week's competition who all correctly translated 'schorseneren' as 'black salsify'. Whatever that is. A special mention also goes to Anna Burns who managed to drop the question into interviews with Dutch football stars Edwin Van der Sar and Ruud Van Nistelrooy. Apparently neither of them got the answer right.