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| The way to a man's heart is through his stomach... |
...and the way to San Jose is a song. But what's the way to find out what we've been up to this week?
Just read this email. |
| Spin that peel |
 We have officially launched our terribly exciting new Facebook App - The innocent Peel of Fortune. There are lots of brilliant prizes to be won for kids, and thousands upon thousands of handy money–off coupons. All you have to do to spin the prize-happy wheel is go here and get three of your facebook friends to join in. And to sweeten the deal, every spin wins, so what on earth are you waiting for. |
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| Things that go 'bump' in First News |
 As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we've teamed up with First News on a very special spooky smoothie competition. Kids can design us a special, spooky smoothie - including the recipe, the name and slogan, the packaging and even the ad campaign. The winners will win a trip to Fruit Towers for their entire class and also get £1000 for their school to spend on anything they like. There's still two more weeks to get involved, so get on over to our halloween page or the First News page.
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| App'l do nicely |
 Our brand new alphabet magnets are in packs now, and to celebrate we've made a brand new app for iPhone and iPad, meaning you can mess about in the innocent kids' world wherever you go. Navigate The Dude's Banana Plane through some targets, pick up some fruity bonuses, unlock stuff and do some other things so cool we can't even figure out how it works. It's our very first app, so we're pretty excited about it, so excited that we've made it completely free. Why not download it, challenge your friends to get to the top of the leaderboard, and let us know what you think. |
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| Taste not waste |
Last week we launched our exciting new project - Taste not waste. Our Lou, Rich and Jojo headed down to East Sheen Primary School with a merry band of helpers from innocent, the guys from food waste group A Taste of Freedom and Zac Goldsmith MP. There, we made smoothies with fruit delivered by Fareshare that would have otherwise gone to waste and chatted to the kids about food waste in general. There was role play, much learning and the first outing of our very own invention 'The Blendavenda'. Go here to find out all about it and see how your school could get involved. |
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| Go on holiday with 3 friends and a banana |
 Not content with just one bit of internet based prize giving, we've also just revealed another great reason to be on facebook quite a bit – innocent Fruit Field Trips. We're giving you and three friends the chance to win the trip of a lifetime to one of the very lovely and exotic places that we find our fruit. Just go here, pick three friends and soon you could be somewhere sunny, with your loved ones, surrounded by a load of fruit. What could be better? |
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| And finally... |
 A very slick, sliding game
The adventures of your stick man
Free diving base jumping
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| Inside Fruit Towers this week |
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Lou, Jojo, Kirsty, Ben and Katie went back to school, Ruvan ate lots of chocolate orange and the the Marmite ran out. Rio took the lift to floor 1, Claire P's hamper went AWOL and Ceri went to do stuff in SF whilst Tansy went hiking in the Pyrenees for the Romilly Forshall Foundation. Joe M went back to Ibiza to finish up his tour of architectural delights and Kerry wore the best T-Rex jumper we've ever seen. Zoe popped off to Nottingham for the day and ate pork pies and drank tizer whilst firewire cables caused unrest.
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| bob of the week |
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Bob of the week this week is Boba Fett the bounty hunter hired by Darth Vadar to find the Millennium Falcon. Wikipedia claims he was a minor villain in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi but it's almost certain his career as a bounty hunter has seen him perform worse acts than simply chasing Han Solo around the galaxy for a princely sum offered up by a fat slug (Jabba the Hut).
 He also goes down in history as one of only two people to make Lord Vadar quake in his boots. Unfortunately for Boba he met his supposed death thanks to accidental rocket pack activation. And we all know death by Sarlacc isn't high up the list of ways to go. If you know a good Bob, email us at iambob@innocentdrinks.co.uk |
| Corner of the week |
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This week's corner of the week is the corner of Beverly Glen and Ventura in Sherman Oaks, USA. It became famous for a rather unhappy reason, it was where the late, great James Dean filled his Porsche Spyder up at 'Casa de Petrol' before taking his very last drive. A sad corner indeed.
The next time you're in Sherman Oaks, put on some Ray Bans, roll up the sleeves on your white tee shirt and try to look an eighth as cool as Jimmy. You won't manage it, but we mere mortals can but try.
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| Tweet, eat, read, repeat |
| This week's news contains news of devastating taxes! Glaswegian coneheads! A van full of healthy food! A twitter competition full of even more healthy food! Jimmy Nail, the glass blower! And five exclamation marks (you will have seen them just then). |
| Tweet and eat |
 Like tweeting? Like eating? Then boy are you in the right place. Over the next 4 weeks we'll be giving away thousands and thousands of money-off coupons for our veg pots. And the more people tweet with the hashtag #tweetandeat, the more the discount increases. We're starting off by giving away '50p off' coupons and the discount will keep increasing until we're giving away loads of free veg pots. So, click here to get involved here. Ps if you're not into all this tweeting, you can just download the latest coupon and get down the shops for a cheaper veg pot. |
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| Fruit devastation and sadness |
Some recent developments in the world of fruit: first of all, we are sure that you'll be aware of the late spring frosts that happened in Poland. You've probably been talking about them down the pub. Anyway, they got us in a lather, mercilessly slaying up to 40% of the annual blackcurrant crop. Mother Nature has a cruel way about her. Then there's that pesky Ukrainian Forest Fruit tax, which we're sure you read about in your local parish magazine. The result of this levy is that the price of blueberries has shot up across the board, adding further peril to the honest business of making drinks from fruit. As ever, our Fruit Team are looking far and wide for the best fruit, the best deals and the best weather. For more news, stay tuned….
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| O'er the border |
 Glasgow here we come. Our HGV has conquered London, Bristol and Manchester, but we all know that you haven't made it til you've done Glasgow. You'll be able to find us in the following spots: Thursday 22nd Sept, 0900-1800 – University of Strathclyde; Friday 23rd September 1030-1930 – Kelvin Hall. Keep up to date with our progress on the Facebook page, check out all our photos on instagram (search for 'innocentsmoothies') or take a look at them here. And remember, if you spot the van while you're out and about, tweet us a picture (tagged #innocentHGV) to win your very own copy of Hungry? |
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| Where is Jimmy Nail? |
It's a fair question, and we don't know the answer. Maybe he went for a very long walk in his Crocodile Shoes. Maybe he's got a new hobby that has nothing to do with being on telly. Something like pottery or glass blowing. If you know, perhaps you can leave a comment on this blog post.
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| Winnerrrrsss |
| These people won tickets to the Peace One Day concert: Katarina H, Laura J, Alastair S, David H-N, Dean B, Arun J, Lola, Ruth, Damian C and Christine S. Well done all. Enjoy the show. |
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| And finally... |
Worst athlete
Actually not that difficult
A little light jazz flute
Nooooooooooooo
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| And finally, finally... |
Putin in action (the best one is the submarine)
What's the all about? Just click the birdy and it will let you re-tweet any of our 'and finally' links at the touch of a button. It's all about word of mouse these days.
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| Inside Fruit Towers this week |
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Spaddy went to the motherland and dressed up as a banana, Joe booked a meeting with Mr Motivator and Gurdeep went to fashion week. Emily got back from Sri Lanka with holiday snaps and a note which had been pushed under her door by a Kuwaiti admirer. Richard (Reed) learnt how to use the colour printer, James P decided to sit on a massage chair all week to 'improve his posture'and the search began for a lion costume Tim came back from the motherland..
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| bob of the week |
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This week we bring you Bob Seger, rock legend, leader of the Silver Bullet Band and owner of some pretty fine "Night Moves".
 Listening to Seger is like being trapped in late 70s America with only some long hair and a straggly beard for company. But you can leave us right there. We like it just fine. If you know a finer one, email us at iambob@innocentdrinks.co.uk |
| Corner of the week |
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This week's corner is in Glasgow's Royal Exchange Square. Specifically, it's the bit where there's a statue of the Duke of Wellington. Tradition has it that the Duke's statue should always be seen wearing a traffic cone on its head.
So if you are in Glasgow this week, checking out our HGV, be sure to see what the Duke's wearing as well.
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| Raindrops on noses and drawings of mittens. |
| Brown bears and sandwiches tied up with string. Here are a few of our newsiest things. (We couldn't clear the real lyrics). |
| The HGV - 2 down, 2 to go |
 The HGV (Hungry Grassy Van) has conquered London and Bristol and is now on it's way to Manchester before its final destination of Glasgow. You can also keep up-to-date with HGV goings on over on our Facebook page here and see all the pictures from the days events by following us on instagram and searching for innocentsmoothies or taking a look at them all here. |
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| Video killed the radio star. But the radio star's website is still very good |
 Have you been dropping hints about getting a Wii fit bundle, but none of your friends have got you one yet? Well now you don't need your friends, because you can win one by playing our new OJ mini game, Keep Em Peeled. It's very simple, go to the Heart FM website play our memory game and the person at the top of the score board at 3pm on Friday 23 September wins the Nintendo Wii Fit bundle. And the next 9 runners up all win some nice innocent stuff. See? We're your real friends.
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| Get your free magnets |
 Right now, as you read this, shops across the land are full of our innocent smoothies for kids and innocent Fruit Tubes, with three free magnets inside. As if that's not exciting enough, there's a special glow in the dark in every pack - with 10 different to collect. Keep an eye on the telly for our new advert (featuring a dragon made of fruit) and look out for the the secret codes on the boxes that unlock hidden extras on our new Bananaplane game. |
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| Trick or treat |
 In honour of our brand new glowing magnets (and with Halloween creeping up on us in a scary, creeping way), we've teamed up with First News on a very special spooky smoothie competition. It's on for four weeks, over which you can design us a special and spooky smoothie - including the recipe, the name + slogan, the packaging and even the ad campaign. The winners will win a trip to Fruit Towers for their entire class + also get £1000 for their school to spend on anything they like. Not bad eh. To find out more, go to www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/halloween or www.firstnews.co.uk Good luck. |
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| innocent at the London Design festival |
 The London Design festival runs from the 19th to the 25th of september and sees the great and the good from the worlds of design show off a bit, and this year, we're putting on a little exhibition, 'Fruit for thought'. It's a little look at our design history and it'd be very nice to see you there. |
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| And finally... |
iFive
Never lose track of your cursor again
If you have to leave, leave properly
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
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| Inside Fruit Towers this week |
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There was a foldable boat in the canal, Jake found a cockroach in his cup, Ben Ng offered to service some bikes for charity and James M said farewell. Cake club made a comeback and Samuel lost some pictures of beautiful naked people. Barbecuing got competitive, Rich's birthday brought bacon flavoured mayonnaise, Atha lost his notebook and we all had brains for breakfast
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| bob of the week |
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Bob of the week this week is Bob Carolgees. In the early 1970s, young comic and light entertainer Bob had an act which involved him telling jokes and then spitting at the audience. After several hundred complaints, many dry cleaning bills and a lawsuit, Bob was forced to stop spitting himself.
But a homemade dog puppet called Spit allowed him to keep the spitting in the show to great acclaim. Bob and Spit have now parted company, with Bob running candle shop called 'Carolgees Candles' in Frodsham and Spit touring his wildly popular solo show 'Get spit at by a pretend dog' to nightly sell-out arenas across America. Know a good Bob? Hit us up here iambob@innocentdrinks.co.uk |
| Corner of the week |
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This week's corner of the week is the TV corner. The corner of the lounge that houses the glowing box of entertainment and intrigue. And currently, beaming our brand new TV advert around the nation.
It's all about whole crushed fruit and nothing else, and it took us ages, so please go and have
a look. |
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| Thirty days hath September |
| So there’s still time for the remaining 23 to buck their act up and pull some cheerful weather out the bag. In the meantime, let this week’s news be the joyful ray of light in the darkness of your inbox. |
| Clever people saying clever things |
 Why bother with croissants, kippers and coddled Weetabix when you can have brains for breakfast? Thankfully in this case there's no early morning scalping involved. Just listening to interesting people say interesting things. Once a month, we'll be inviting speakers to come to Fruit Towers to share their wisdom with us, and whichever 35 people buy their tickets first get a bacon bap*, cup of tea and a comfy seat to listen to some breakfast wisdom. Our first speaker is going to be Louis Theroux on Wednesday 14th September and there are still a few tickets left – a snip at a fiver. So to feed your mind (and stomach) click here. |
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| Ticket to Peace |
 For those that don't know, Peace One Day is a non-profit organisation founded by filmmaker, Jeremy Gilley, where every year 21st September is designated as International Peace Day, with the aim of global ceasefire and non-violence on this day to eventually spread to every day, forever, amen. As part of raising awareness of this day, every year they hold a big music concert and this year it’s in London at the O2 on 21st September. Everyone from Yusuf (a.k.a Cat Stevens) through to Eliza Doolittle and maybe even Razorlight are playing and we’ve got 10 pairs of tickets to give away. If you fancy winning a pair, enter right here and find out a little more about Peace One Day while you’re at it.
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| Road trip |
| Our Hungry Grassy Van hits the road in London this Friday, and tours the UK in the following weeks. It’s going to be great. The open road, pedal to the metal, and tasty, healthy food for under a fiver. Gerrin. If you fancy finding out more, click here to find out when it’s coming to a street near you. |
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| Shameful apology #1 |
Avid readers of this publication will note that in an earlier edition, we revealed that the glass blob that featured in several news stories was in fact a sculpture by Julian Wild. Whilst we concluded this in the news, we did not update the blog. Disgruntled of Oxford, Curious of Kent and Cliff of Crystal Palace all got in touch to ask why the chuffing well not. We have now rectified this matter. Right here. Disgruntled, Curious and Cliff, we're sorry for being a bit lazy, hope that this now makes everything peachy again and that you continue to read our stuff every week.
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| Various other matters |
| Tom F is looking to buy some tennis equipment on the cheap, Bryony needs a recommendation for a reliable builder in the West London area and Emily's brother is looking to rent his flat in Wimbledon. If you can help with any of these things or have stuff you'd like to shift/get your mitts on, let us know and if we get enough things, we'll add some sort of shonky classifieds section to the news. All requests and offers to the usual address. |
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| And finally... |
I'm a fire surfer, Twisty fire surfer
Breathing don't come cheap
Space pizza
Sleep walkies (thanks to Vicks for this link)
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| And finally, finally... |
Having a rubbish week? So busy you wish you’d never got up on Monday? Cheer up. At least you haven't been stuffed with sand and given buttons for eyes. (thanks to Claire Showerstealer for this link)
What's the all about? Just click the birdy and it will let you re-tweet any of our 'and finally' links at the touch of a button. It's all about word of mouse these days.
*or eggy baps if you're veggie
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| Inside Fruit Towers this week |
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The holiday people came back brown and chirpy and then wondered aloud why no one was speaking to them. The people who stayed behind (and have used up all their holiday allowance already) just nodded towards the lashing rain outside. Janel offered deep heat and custard creams as an enticement to come down to reception, Amy S got juicy, Gurdeep got senior, the first innocent baby was born (hello Nienke Poppy, well done Jess and Niels), Jack sent the entire company an email kiss and the special carrot key which unlocks the smoothie fridge went walkies.
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| bob of the week |
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This is Paula. Paula is Elaine's mum. According to Elaine, everyone calls her mum, Bob. The chap on the right is not called Bob. We have no information about the chap on the right. Except that he is wearing an empty noughts and crosses board instead of a shirt.
 Anyways, everyone calls Paula Bob. Not Paula Bob. They just call her Bob. And she handmade every single one of the 76 stone place settings for Elaine's wedding, lugged them all to Greece and then had to sit next to a man who likes to draw on himself, without so much as muttering a cross word. Or even a crossword. A fine Bob indeed. If you know a finer one, email us at iambob@innocentdrinks.co.uk |
| Corner of the week |
Corner of the Week for the next few weeks is going to be Hungry Corner. Or Not Hungry Corner as it's the corner that will tell you which city our Hungry Grassy Van is heading to next. This Friday, the HGV hits the road, starting in London at Surrey Quays Shopping Centre.
 On Saturday, we'll be on Wimbledon Common and Windrush Square and then Allen Gardens on Sunday. On Tuesday 13th, the HGV will head to the Bristol Science Museum and then onto Centre Promenade on Sunday. You can find out exact times and locations here. And if you spot the van on the road, send us a picture to @innocentdrinks using #innocenthgv and not only could you win a copy of our new recipe book, Hungry? we will also dedicate this corner to you in a future edition of the news. Woop, jollity, etc. |
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| Congratulations Beyonce and Jay-Z. |
| We've got some news too. It may be less cool, but it is right here. |
| The innocent AGM (A Grown-up Meeting) |
 We've always liked to know what you think of the stuff we make. Your phone calls, letters, emails and visits make sure we know what you think we should do next and what we could do better. So every year we hold our very own AGM (A Grown-up Meeting), where 150 of you come to Fruit Towers, ask some questions, learn a bit more about our business, make and taste some new stuff, and eat cake. And we’re rather excited about this year’s AGM. It’s our fourth, but the first at our brand spanking new office in Ladbroke Grove. It’s a proper tower our new office, right next to a canal with real life ducks floating about, and special taps that dispense boiling water. It's great. And if you want a day of unbridled entertainment and fruit based wonder, you can get yourself and a guest of your choosing (mum/friend/spirit guide) along to this year’s AGM. To be in with a chance of coming please click here. |
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| Brand new kids magnets are here |
 We've designed a brand new set of our alphabet magnets, and they've finally arrived, free inside packs of innocent smoothies for Kids and innocent Fruit Tubes from this week. There are 3 free magnets in every pack, and this time there's a special glow in the dark one every time. So if you were looking for an interesting and exciting way to teach your kids and your fridge the alphabet at the same time, you just hit the jackpot. Look out for them.
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| Big animal, little animal |
 As you may know, we are engaged in a non-stop quest to solve all of life's great mysteries. Mysteries like 'Which British athlete of the 90's would you have round for a barbecue?' (Kris Acabusi, as long as he kept noise levels to a minimum after ten o'clock). Well we've cracked another biggie. We now know without question that people would choose to have a mini elephant over giant bear, a tiny whale over massive hamster, and an enormous lop eared rabbit over very small silverback gorilla. If you'd like to help us put together the jigsaw of life (or whatever it is we're doing) head over to our facebook page and join us. |
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| Crayfish |
Last week we told you about the terrifying sea monster that we found in the canal next to Fruit Towers. As it turns out, it's less of a terrifying sea monster and more of a crayfish. Our friend Bronte from The Scandinavian kitchen told us so. What's more, Bronte also told why our new underwater neighbour is hiding out in West London at the moment: "Right now is Crayfish Season in Sweden. Where people get together, wear silly hats and bibs, drink aquavit and eat at least a kilo of crayfish each - and then we sing songs about drinking. It is all very pleasant." Thank you for the heads up Bronte. Everyone who works here is now working shifts, protecting the crayfish from hungry Swedes. We shall keep him safe, until such time as he looks delicious. Then we may go and buy some bibs and hats.
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| Shameless plugs |
| A rawl plug that goes out with it's best friend's ex-wife the day after the divorce goes through. A plug on the end of the kettle that brazenly goes about telling the kettle's stories in the pub as if they were it's own. And now us. Please go to our facebook page and give us a 'like'. It took us ages to do the drawings and you'll even get some nice stuff. Thank you. |
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| And finally... |
Wet dogs
A button to make everything dramatic
A button to make everything ok again
A guide to goat rotation
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| And finally, finally... |
Listen to Genesis 'Man on the Corner'
What's the all about? Just click the birdy and it will let you re-tweet any of our 'and finally' links at the touch of a button. It's all about word of mouse these days.
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| Inside Fruit Towers this week |
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Lucy E still hasn't used the lift in the new building. Mark G is wearing a fleece that is too small for him. Rich is late for yet another lunch. Ben, Gurdeep and Sarah met a very nice man called Dom and ate loads of sweets underground. Jojo made Beans an amazing birthday card loads of people went on holiday and anyone that didn't either sulked or booked a holiday.
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| bob of the week |
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This week’s Bob of the week is Robot Bob who belongs to Sophie's friend Dan. "My Bob of the week is in fact a robot being made by my friend Dan from work. He enters Bob in competitions against other geeks and sometimes he even wins. Together they are travelling the length and breadth of the British Isles (girlfriend and work commitments permitting) to compete and I think they make a sweet couple.
 Dan has spent many a lonely hour slaving over a hot soldering iron to create this demon, as you can see he is a wedge style robot, so he works both right way up and upside down (with reversed controls) which apparently is difficult to do. I would really love it if my Bob could be the Bob of the week, and I know it would make Dan very proud". Thank you very much Sophie. Robot Bob, we salute you. Know a good Bob? Email us at iambob@innocentdrinks.co.uk |
| Corner of the week |
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This week’s corner of the week is the corner from the Genesis song 'Man on the corner'. The song focuses mainly on the man from the title, rather than the corner. He's waiting, and he's very lonely. it seems like he's been stood up, or has perhaps arrived far to early to meet some friends and his friends aren't there yet. Then we learn that this is happening every day (which suggests very poor time management) and then there's a bit about being in love with a monkey.
 The bit of the song we're interested in, the corner, is left a bit of a mystery. We know that there's 'no hiding place' on this corner, suggesting it's tidy. And seeing as the man is waiting so long and so often, there's probably a bench. So we think it sounds like a great corner. More songs about corners please. |
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innocent foundation
