The Deluxe Quakers

We'd love to be part of a movement, but this week we have become confused. Just when we were getting used to being people who made smoothies, the press told us we were something else. According to the Evening Standard, we are actually "The New Quakers" - a group of people who care about the environment, switch their electricity accounts to renewable suppliers and make their decisions with a good conscience. Sounds nice.

But then a magazine called High Life rocked the good ship New Quaker and labelled us as "The Deluxe Domesticates". We're now young people who combine our lust for overseas adventure with a passion for upscale short breaks in our own backyard. Sounds nice too.

We're going to have a vote in the office and work out which ones we should be. We'll let you know how we get on.

In the spirit of the Deluxe Quaker brother/sisterhood, we feel dutybound to tell you where you can add a bit of value to your weekly shop. So, if you get your groceries in Asda or Budgens, you'll be happy to hear that our drinks are doing the special offer thing for the next couple of weeks. Rejoice, dance a jig of delight in the aisles and try not to be ejected from the store by security for your exuberant celebrations.

Here's a cautionary tale. Imagine yourself on a nice beach on holiday, escaping the grey drudge of winter. With nothing better to do, you decide to get one of those henna tattoos. It's different, it's a bit crazy, and by the time you get home it will have faded away so that nobody can take the mickey out of you. Unless, of course, it makes your skin go red and a bit swollen and doesn't look like it's going anywhere. Ouch. But then you have to look on the bright side, Richard. At least you don't work for Dingleberry smoothies.

Take one hungry snake, add a hamster and what do you get? Two beautiful creatures who hang out together and play Connect 4 all day long. Best friends. Click here to read about them.

January is like a grey man from Greytown wearing a grey suit sitting in a grey kitchen eating a ham sandwich (on grey bread). Pretty grey. So here is some innocent news to de-grey you.

Our outlet of the week is the mighty Champneys, who have just started stocking our drinks. Some would call Champneys a health farm, but we prefer to label it as "your journey to spa heaven". Actually, we nicked that bit from their website. "Champneys award-winning resorts are adored by both men and women, acclaimed by journalists and enjoyed by celebrities." Nicked that too. Anyway, we thought we'd give you a treat, seeing as it's January and you're probably fasting/detoxing/developing a strange liking for Pete Burns.

We'd like to offer a detox-in-a-box to five lucky folks (otherwise known as a case of smoothies), and all you have to do is perform this simple task:

Send us a picture of you doing something healthy in January. Funniest picture wins. Email them to hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk and please type 'Fit January' in the subject box.

We asked everyone at innocent to give us their tips for brightening up January. Here's what they recommended:

Jess - eat shepherds pie and peas
Viv - propose to your girlfriend on a deserted beach
Mark - go to an art gallery (first time for everything)
Kate - watch Darius in Chicago
Rich - eat fish and drink beer on an Indian beach
Kat - get tipsy with your granddad
Lucy - do a roast for your friends
James - go to the China exhibition at the Royal Academy
Ailana - clean out a cupboard full of old rubbish

For those of you who missed the story about the glow in the dark pigs, here's the story about the glow in the dark pigs. As our Geoff said, this could be very handy if you're thinking of making a bacon sandwich and the fridge light blows. Click here for the story.

It's not an original thought, but how is it that we managed to get man to the moon with less computer power than you get in the average mobile phone? And how come I get cut off when I'm talking to my mum?

As you know, we are hip. We can do krump dancing. We know that 2006 is the year of the patent leather cowboy boot. And we have the only two Nik Kershaw albums that matter. But last week we got even more hip, daddio. Because we were on Radio 1, mouthpiece of the nation's cool kids.

We were there as part of their Be Fabulous campaign, which is all about getting a bit healthier this new year. JK and Joel invited our Lucy onto their show to make them some smoothies and she wowed them with two specially invented recipes. Click here to listen to Lucy making smoothies live on air. You can also see the recipes for our mangoes and basil and pineapples, blueberries and ginger smoothies if you fancy having a go yourself.

We made a lot of smoothies last week. In fact, it was our biggest week ever. So it would seem that some of you are sticking to your new year detox thing and replacing lager shandies with fruit smoothies. Anyway, whenever we make a load of smoothies, we like to amaze you with a good fact. And this week is no exception - did you know that we mashed up over nine million portions of fruit last week? That's enough to give everyone in Bolivia a portion each. Shame we don't sell our drinks in Bolivia yet. One day...

There are a couple of new faces at innocent in 2006. One of them belongs to Melissa and the other one belongs to Marijntje, whose name we're having a bit of trouble pronouncing. Here are some facts about them:

• Melissa was born in Singapore
• She went to school in Milton Keynes
• Her New Year's resolution is to meet a proper famous person
• Marijntje always closes doors behind her
• When she was little she'd only eat dessert from an egg cup
• Things on her desk have to be touching other things - pencils, keyboards, mousemats etc can't be left in isolation.

For those of you who had a good long Christmas holiday, welcome back. We missed you. We're sure that skiing in the Alps/drinking rum in Barbados must have been awful, and that you are practically exploding with joy at the thought of reading our news again. If you have been away, you might have missed the rather nice free screensaver we came up with, brimming full of tips to help you get a bit healthier this new year and available to download if you click here. Go on, have a click.

The great seer Nostradamus had the following to say about 2006:

1. A comet might destroy Earth
2. Somebody might go to war with somebody else
3. Phil Collins will take Mutya's place as the third Sugababe

Detoxing can mean many things. It can mean that you feel guilty after lying in bed for two weeks, only surfacing to have a light and nutritious gravy-and-rissole panini at about 3pm. It might mean that you've stopped smoking forever, honest, this time there's no way I'm starting again apart from maybe with a drink in the pub. Or it could mean that you're drinking a delicious New Year Detox smoothie, containing beetroot, apples, pears and ginger. Read about it here.

Of course, staying healthy in the New Year is not just a simple matter of drinking a deliciously ruby red smoothie, full of liver-cleansing beetroot. Oh no. What you also need is an intelligent and timely screensaver, which will sit on your computer and give you lots of tips for staying healthy the easy way over the next month or so. And what do you know - we have made exactly such a thing. Download it for free right here.

Of course, the final piece of our cunning plan for the New Year is to put an advert on the telly. It looks a bit like our old advert, which is fine because it seemed to do the job. But you might notice that it has a new voiceover that addresses specific January ills. Click here to watch it. And see if you can guess who's doing the voiceover.

Jo and Andrew from Cardiff. You know who you are. You sent us a beautiful recipe for a mango and basil smoothie in March 2005 and it's been chosen to go into our forthcoming recipe book (published April 2006, available in all good bookshops and some bad ones as well). Can you get in touch at hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk? We've lost your email address. Thanks.