We are currently reconsidering the future of the company, the cosmos and everything else. I mean, here we are messing about with fruit and stuff; meanwhile, somewhere out there, argument is raging about the very nature of the planets that make up our solar system. We feel inadequate.

VAT'll do nicely

What started as a small remark in last week's news seems to have interested quite a few of you, and some people in high places as well. Our campaign to cut tax on smoothies has reached the Financial Times and when we mentioned the story in our blog, it seems like quite a few of you wanted to have your say. As Gil commented "Of course it's daft that Turkey Twizzlers are VAT-free and healthy fruit drinks aren't - why not post a link to the 'mail your MP' site: www.WriteToThem.com so that people can do just that?"
Why not indeed?

Win tickets to a posh concert

Fancy going to a concert? Well, we're going to be dishing out free drinks and manning our stall at a posh summer concert that's happening near Leeds on Sunday 3rd September (more details here). And we'd like to give away three pairs of tickets so that you can come too. To win them just answer the following question:

What is a bassoon? Is it...

a) a monkey with a red backside

b) something that old men spit into occasionally, perhaps after chewing tobacco or beef jerky

c) a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that plays in the tenor range and below

Click here if you know the answer.

Some facts about honey

1. Did you know that honey bees have to gather nectar from 2 million flowers in order to make a pound of honey, which means that one bee would have to fly 3 times round the globe to make a pound of honey. Cor blimey. However, in reality the average honey bee will only make 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime. Sob.

2. Bees communicate via the medium of dance (why not watch a video of it here), just like Michael Flatley

3. We use honey in what many consider to be our finest ever recipe - yoghurt,vanilla bean and honey.

And finally...

...we don't want to rev you up too much, but it's almost time to begin knitting again. Next week we'll reveal the details of this year's Supergran. Please hold your breath/ excitement/ wool until then.

We now have a blog. We're enjoying writing it quite a bit. It contains similar stuff to our weekly news; the difference being that we post new stories whenever we feel like it, so there are new stories up there all the time. And you can post comments to it as well. Feel free to check it out by clicking here.

The most ethical meal on earth

We have long imagined what the most ethical meal on earth might look like. Perhaps a starter of tofu porridge, followed by a wholesome and appetising mung bean lasagne with a dessert of macrobiotic Peruvian egg nog. Thankfully, it would seem that the reality is a bit more tasty. Line caught sea bass, white wine and a few hefty slices of Dickinson and Morris's finest pork pies are where it's at. Or at least that's what the Observer Food Monthly says. We also squeeze onto the menu, due to the fact that we give 10% of all profits away to people who need the cash more than us, and also due to the fact that our drinks taste good. Quite important that.

PS if you're after a recipe for mung bean lasagne, we found one here.

In it to win it

So, to the results of the great Fruitstock flickr photo thing. We've picked out our favourite three pictures - click here to have a look at them. Aren't they beautiful?

Well done to Richard, Toby and SlipStream, all of whom will be receiving £250 to go towards a new camera/tattoo/whatever they fancy really.

And well done to these people who answered last week's question correctly - lemons are yellow. Carole, Cecil, Danielle, Andrew, Fiona, Sarah, Claire, Donna , Stacey, Charlotte - we'll be touch very soon.

Sundae Sundae

Please say hello to Steve and Jan from Sundae Sundae, an ice-cream deli in sunny Whitstable and this month's official Best Place To Buy Our Drinks award. When they're not selling banana splits (and our smoothies) they're off to their eco house for a few months every year. Alright for some.

If you'd like to nominate a place that sells our drinks in a particularly fine way, email shoutmeout@innocentdrinks.co.uk and let us know.

Your brains, our place, 3.30pm

OK, so you can do this any time you fancy, but we'd like to know what you think about a few different things, mainly to do with our drinks. So click this link, tick a few boxes and let us know how you think we're doing. Should take about five minutes.

And ten of you will be picked at random to win some amazing things (drinks is a pretty good bet).

And finally...

Hello. Hope you’re alright. This week we bring you Sarah Beeny and a very thin slice of the whole spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. Oh boy.

Rubus Fruticosus

Each week here at Fruit Towers we learn a bit more about a new fruit. And we like to share. So here's what we learned about the blackberry this week:

She won a car

We like cars with hybrid engines. Powered 50% by batteries, they’re much kinder on the environment and they still get you wherever you need to go. The clever people at Honda have been making them for a while, and have kindly given us one. They’ve even turned it into a cow to go with the rest of our wheels.

Honda also ran a competition at Fruitstock for someone to win a hybrid for a month. You can check out the winning designs right here. Well done to Paige, aged 9, who ended up being the winner.

We would like to give you stuff

We are conscious that what with Fruitstock and everything, we haven't given you anything for a while. We’d like to break this habit by asking you a simple question about fruit and giving you the chance to win one of ten innocent bundles (drinks and recipe books). So, the question:

What colour is a lemon?
a) yellow
b) orange
c) there's no such thing as colour - it's just a pale, perceptually filtered depiction of what is going on in a very thin slice of the whole spectrum of electromagnetic radiation.

Click here if you think you might know the answer.

Up north

Our Vic runs innocent things in the north of the UK. She likes a chat, so here's what she said last time we spoke to her:

"...not sure if you've done the news yet but Dene’s Deli in Jesmond has reopened after a swish refurb. And there's a bit of a do at Fenwick’s in Newcastle this weekend. The event is called "Al fresco" - it's a celebration of how the UK makes the most of it when we have good weather. The important bit is that our smoothie bikes will be there this Fri & Sat. Address details here."

And finally...

It's all over for another year. Time to pack away the bunting and have a lie down.

You came, you saw, you did a little dancing

We'd just like to say thanks for coming to the park and enjoying yourselves at Fruitstock. We never quite know how it will turn out. Will the rain stay away? Will the sun shine? Will I see anyone who I fancy?

Well, this year we got lucky again (with the sun - we didn't actually get lucky lucky).

But there were some things that didn't shine. We'd like to make a couple of quick apologies. First up, the toilets. The queues were too long and we're sorry that you had to wait in line. We're also sorry about starting late on Sunday. The amount of people that turned up the day before meant that sorting the rubbish took longer than expected. We also had to make sure that any broken glass was cleared up so that the site was safe. Anyway, hope this didn't spoil things for you.

Snap and share

Fruitstock's a pretty big festival, which means we didn't get a chance to see you all. So how do you fancy sharing your photos? Then we can see what you got up to. We've put a load of ours up at this flickr group and if you fancy posting yours up there too, that would be great.

When the dust has settled, we'll look through them all and award three prizes of £250 to our favourite Fruitstock photos, which we'll then use on the web and maybe even in adverts and stuff next year, with your permission of course. Your chance to shine awaits.

If you weren't at Fruitstock, have a look at the pictures anyway. They're good.

When we're not organising festivals...

...we sometimes make drinks. So please say hello to our pomegranates and raspberries smoothie. It's our new guest recipe - you might remember it from last year when it had a stint as a seasonal recipe. There were lots of requests to get it back as a guest, so here it is.

The timing's pretty good too. Pomegranates are reckoned to be one of the healthiest fruits around - they're packed with polyphenols: antioxidants that help combat those nasty free radicals that can damage your body's cells. Just the thing to sort you out after a tough weekend at a festival.

Milking it

Some light reading for you - an interview with our Richard in The Independent. Verdict - he says 'dude' a lot. Read it here.

And finally...

It's the last call. Our last chance to tell you about Fruitstock, which happens this weekend. It's going to be really hot or rain quite a lot, depending on which forecast you listen to. But we don't care. The thing to remember is that it's going to be very, very good. And free. See you in the park.

Our top ten tips for Fruitstock

There's a lot going on at Fruitstock. But if we had to pick out ten things that we reckon you should definitely do, it's these:

That's about it. Normal service will be resumed next week - you know, stuff about drinks and all that - but this week it's all about you know what. We'll see you there.