Our big game of consequences is now in it's last 24 hours. If you want to write the very end line to any of the 26 stories just pop over to our consequences website, pick any letter, catch up on the story so far, and bring it to a happy ending. Then just wait until 4pm tomorrow (Thursday 12th Nov) to see if your line was chosen as the winner on any of the letters.
3 free fridge magnet versions of each letter are still available in all of our kids smoothie multi-packs in the shops now. They'll be collectors editions soon so an eye out for them.
Our friends from Thoughtful really are very thoughtful. Very thoughtful indeed.
It was a cold, rainy London day when I received a call from the lovely James (pictured above, on the right). He wanted to know if it was ok if he organised a knitathon in aid of the Big Knit. I thought about it for about 12 seconds and replied "Well of course it is. That indeed would be very, very thoughtful".
A few phonecalls and a delivery of all the neccessary knitathon bits and bobs later, the Sainsbury's Romiley Thoughtful Knitathon was born.
They knitted and chatted and knitted for a whole 16 hours and managed to knit well over 100 hats. We just wanted to say an enormous thank you to everyone who took part.
So without further ado [cue drumroll/cymbal crash/other exciting sound effects] sit back and enjoy Jim Anderson's Chiller. (You can also watch it bigger in HD here if you like).
By day, they manage everything from getting smoothies from A to B, keeping the office ship shape, answering the bananaphone and doing IT stuff.
But by night (and every other weekend), they rise up, cast their day jobs to one side and dance like the living dead.
If the living dead had a thing for talc, ripped lycra and mixed ability dancing.
Please say hello to the Zombie All Stars
Eddie- Office Superman (and self proclaimed Head of Security)
Day-to-day job: Manning the grassy van fleet, filling the fridge, fixing all problems when Ian the Builder isn't about, refilling the fridge, lifting lots of heavy stuff, using a drill and sporting an array of day glo flat caps.
Zombie role: Werewolf and zombie dancer in Troop Camp. Someone has since stolen said mask. He'd like it back please. No questions asked.
Interesting fact: Eddie has just won the innocent scholarship to take acting lessons in New York. In anticipation of hitting the big time, he very kindly signed his autograph for you to add to your collection.
Print out, save and then whack on eBay in five year's time.
Ruth - Commercial Operations
Day-to-day job: Ruth describes her day job as 'Working with the sales team to make sure all their chat actually happens'. Or getting the right smoothies get to the right place at the right time.
Zombie role: The receptionist and lead dancer in Troop Literally
Interesting fact: Ruth had planned to bury her costume for that authentic zombie look. Told everyone she'd buried it in fact. Went out in the newsletter and everything. Turns out after all, she forgot to bury her dress. Thankfully, talc disguises a multitude of hastily purchased sins.
John T - Commercial Manager
Day-to-day job: In his own words, John 'looks after' the high street. Meaning where ever you see one of our drinks in a high street shop, you'll have John's silver tongued sales patter to thank.
Zombie role: Zombie Dancer #8 in Troop Smash. Lightest on his feet of entire cast (see below)
Interesting fact: Despite being a lifter of big weights and lover of all things sporty, John won the award for Ponciest Dancing Shoes this side of Fame, chasséeing up in slip on dance pumps.
Mark G - Infrastructures Analyst
Day-to-day job: Something to do with networks and servers. Something to do with going into a big cupboard under the stairs that no one else is allowed in.
Zombie role: Boardroom zombie, gym zombie and integral member of Troop Literally
Interesting fact: Mark knew his calling from an early age. Sadly his fashion forward jumpers and trendy bowl cut weren't enough to cut it at fashion college. So he plumped for a career in IT instead.
Check out that keys on that board.
Jim Anderson - Head of Projects
Day-to-day job: In his day job which is "more than just I.T", Jim and his team are in charge of changing the difficult stuff in Fruit Towers. Explains alot really.
Zombie role: Casting director, location scout, producer, dance teacher, screen writer, the main man (Pictured below: Front of shot, slightly green, tight red jeans)
Interesting fact #1: Jim reckons he spent 10 hours learning the dance. That's not taking into account time spent practicing in meetings or whilst standing behind people's desks. Just imagine. All that gyrating, all that hee hee, going on right behind your chair when all you'd ask for was an Excel formula.
Interesting fact #2: The hardest bit of the dance to get right was this sequence:
Right hip, right hip, right hip, in, out, left hip, left hip.
He's got it nailed now. After all that back-of-chair rehearsing,
So now you've met some of the cast, gleaned their vital stats and had a sneak peak of the choreography (right hip, right hip, right hip etc), why not check them out in action right here?
So having won the innocent scholarship, back on a sunny Saturday in September, Jim, film crew, makeup artists, an array of mixed ability dancers and one zombie baby descended on Fruit Towers for the filming of Jim Anderson's Chiller.
For those who like to see how the magic happens, here's a little behind the scenes tour of the day.
Location location
Chiller was filmed in a series of glamorous locations across Fruit Towers.
The products kitchen: pre the zombie smoothies arriving.
Interestingly, the gym has had a strange effect on Mark G in the past
Rehearsals
Car park practice went on all day. And well into the night.
Have a little look here:
Zombification
The lovely makeup ladies worked their magic to transform fresh faces into less fresh faces.
They were brilliant at talcing it up
Paid close attention to detail
Made sure everyone looked suitably terrifying, including Baby Zombie, Eva, aged 2 (left)
And Ed G and Joe.
Post makeup.
Filming
There was a lot of this
Quite a bit of this
And lots of waiting around, maxing out the rider (which consisted mainly of sausage rolls and fizzy cola bottles)
Special effects
The amazing smoke machine was used in the gym, the post room, the car park, where ever needed copious smoke really.
(Thanks to Louis who won the award for spending most time lying on a wet car park floor, pumping smoke out at people for hours. And hours)
The monster jeep also came along
It rocked up, complete with massive floodlights on the back, metal shelves to leap onto, Bodyform style, and the capacity to go underwater (which was not needed during filming but reassuring to know)
And of course, the fake hand
The fake hand was used in the video as a pointer in the zombie boardroom meeting and can be also be seen later on, falling off Olly H, mid dance off.
Currently, Ruth is using it as her own personal receptionist to answer the phone and freak out Sustainability Lou.
The cast
Having subjected them to a set of gruelling auditions, Jim handpicked every dancer and then sensibly split everyone into dance troops to learn a section of the dance each.
There was Troop Smash
Troop Camp
And Troop Literally
A good proportion of the dancers from Troop Literally are members of the GoldFork Toad Football Team
You may recognise them from such features as Return of The Goldfork Toads
Here they are, off the pitch, on the car park floor, mid pelvic thrust.
Spot the difference.
Fancy finding out a bit more about the Zombie All Stars? Get up close and personal right here...
Every three months, applications open in Fruit Towers for the innocent scholarship.
If you win the scholarship, you get £1,000 to do something you’ve always wanted to.
The only rules are that whatever you apply to do must be a) legal b) for you and c) not for anything medical.
You have to present your application to the whole company in the Monday Morning Meeting and then everyone votes for their favourite.
Over the years, there have been all sorts of applications. Rachel learnt how to breakdance, Kat H qualified as a masseuse and Jojo learnt how to take amazing pictures.
Others have climbed mountains, taught football to streetchildren in Thailand, rebuilt beloved boats and installed a massive fish tank in their living room (it took Peter 4 applications to get that one through).
Mark and Shrimp even went all the way to India on a quest to find the best chutney (which for the record was coriander, mint and lime). They not only brought some back for everyone but also gave a slideshow about their chutney odyssey.
Jim however decided to use his scholarship win to make a little music video.
It involved a large cast of dancers, some tight red leather and a whole lotta hee-hee.
Just like Amy, they decided to have a go at the activity on the back of one of our kids' smoothies and made some smart maracas out of their empty wedges.
Very generously, they then took their maracas along to a wedding where Designer Kat was bridesmaid and presented her with them to shake on the way down the aisle.
If you've made any of the ideas off our kids' smoothies or have any ideas what our bottles, pots and cartons can be used for once you've finished with them, then please email your suggestions/pictures to hello@innocentdrinks.co.uk
If they end up on pack, then we'll send you a case of smoothies to say thanks.
We've always liked to keep ahead of the times at innocent. But there's a point when you're so ahead of the times that you're in the past. Like when mohicans and mullets were all the rage, and rave music came back again.
So this week we're going to be so ahead of the curve that we'll be celebrating halloween a week later than most people. Here's our starter for ten with a game of spot the smoothies in Marie Claire's September 2006 halloween spread (thanks to Dominika for adding this to our facebook group)...
Then later in the week we're going to have something very, very special to share with you in an ironically, slightly delayed, halloween resurrection kind of way.
Today we spoke to a lady called Alison, who was calling on behalf of her daughter Anjani.
Anjani has a bear whose name is Oscar. I think it's important at this juncture to point out that Oscar is actually a girl bear. Apparently as Anjani and (all right thinking people) know Oscar is, in fact, a name for girls and not a name for boys. Now that's cleared up, we can move on.
So, picture the scene, Alison Anjani and Oscar all went shopping this week. Conscious of a bit of a nip in the air Oscar was hoping to buy something for the current Autumn/Winter season. After a disheartening afternoon traipsing round the shops they were about to go home defeated, when to everyone's surprise the local Sainsbury's delivered big time.
Here's Oscar looking stylish in outfit one 'ear flap hat'
and here reclining like a pro in outfit two 'blue frill hat'
We hadn't thought of the Big Knit as an opportunity to expand your wardrobe, but if it worked for Oscar it might well work for you. So if you know of any under dressed bears, or hamsters with cold ears, or even have some dreary boots you want to jazz up then you know where to look.
This is our Big Knit Choir. The ones who are re-recording their 1980 hit single 'There's no one quite like Grandma' to help raise money for Age Concern and the Big Knit this Christmas. Last week they were all very busy recording the single and video for the song at a variety of secret locations around London. All very X-factor.
And this is June Whitfield, our favourite Absolutely Fabulous star who puts in a cameo performance in the Big Knit Choir video.
You can nose over a lots more behind the scenes photos of June, Rich, the Big Knit Choir and Beryl & Jean on our Big Knit Choir facebook page here. And also watch some exclusive backstage video of the choir reminiscing about Mrs Hartley, fainting singers and ghostly monks.
Today is a big Big Knit day, it's the very first day of the hats making it onto the chilled shelves of Sainsbury's stores up and down the country. Here's some very early spots our drinkers have made of the hats for us so far.
And finally Bella's customised her ugg boots with a veg pot warmer (via flickr).
Keep an eye out for them if you're going to do your big shop in Sainsbury's tonight. And keep adding your pics to our flickr, facebook or twitter places.
If the drive you happen to be meandering down is the green and pleasant walkway of The Goldhawk Estate, W6.
Fresh from her urban foraging expedition, Lucy T spotted this beauty on her way down the drive last week
So excited was she about her fungus find that she went directly home to get her special mushroom book
We then spent a good fifteen minutes trying to figure out what type of mushroom it was
And whether or not it was edible.
After much page flicking and a lot of holding various glossy pictures next to said 'shroom, we narrowed it down to three possible contenders.
It's either a type of parasol mushroom which is meant to taste lovely when made into fritters
It's got that frilly bit underneath, see. Like one of those posh umbrellas.
Or it could be a False Death Cap.
Now, according to the book, False Death Cap mushrooms are not poisonous. However, they are easily confused with the Death Cap mushroom. Which, as it's name suggests, is poisonous. Unlike it's cousin.
Ahem.
If there are any budding mycologists out there who reckon they know what it is and fancy swapping mushroom wisdom for some crushed fruit, then please drop us a line.
Meantime, we're going to heed the advice of Yun and Andy and ignore it until we can be 100% sure that it's not poisonous.
And ignoring it includes not thinking about mushroom fritters, mushroom risotto, mushroom omelette, garlic mushrooms, mushroom stroganoff or mushrooms on toast every time we leave the office.
**************Mushroom news just in*****************
05/11/2009 Kate from Bristol has been on the phone. She's a qualified medical herbalist and has advised us not to eat this mushroom as she said it is actually a Death Cap. After all the posts and emails, we definitely won't be eating it. Thanks to everyone who's been in touch.
Months and months of dedicated knitting have finally come to fruition (sorry) and Big Knit hats and scarves will be working their woolly way into Sainsbury's stores up and down the country from tomorrow, Wednesday 4th November.
To celebrate the big day we'll be giving away a box of free smoothies to the very first person to either tweet us a picture of a Sainsbury's shelf full of behatted smoothies (to @innocentdrinks) or add a picture to our big knit flickr group. There'll also be randomly chosen runner up prizes for any picture taken of a shelf full of smoothies in hats/ squeezies in hats/ or veg pots in scarves added to our aforementioned twitter or flickr places anytime tomorrow.
Knitter natter, pitter patter - that's the sound of 620,000 behatted smoothies, squeezies and veg pots making their woolly way to a Sainsbury's near you.
Okay, so that's not an actual representation of the sound of bottles being delivered to stores but budget sound affects aside, the Big Knit goes live this week.
To celebrate the sixth year of this crocheted campaign (and to keep that Halloween feeling going that little bit longer), Gurdeep organised a massive game of Knitted Mummies.
We say organsied.
He also invented, devised and orchestrated the whole affair.
Here's how to play if you've got a spare half hour and 200 balls of wool kicking about.
Knitted Mummies
What you need
Loads of wool
A captive audience (preferably first thing on a Monday morning)
Some wannabe mummies
A novelty charity single
Gurdeep
Step 1: Assign each team as many balls of wool as they can carry and make them each nominate a mummy dummy.
Step 2: Allow them to cast on/tie the wool to their mummy but do not let the winding commence until the song has started.
Step 3: Give them the duration of the Big Knit Choir's Christmas singleThere's No One Quite Like Grandma to completely wrap their team mate in wool.
Extra points for woollen boxing gloves and novelty hats
Step 4: Find a genuine mummy-to-be to judge the final line up (thanks, Judge Emma G)
Step 5: Award prizes appropriately.
The Mumrah Award for most Unrecognisable Mummy: Caroline
Special Commendation for Double Wrap Tag Team: Mav and Steve
Special 40th Birthday Mummy Prize: Daverah
Step 6: Unravel your mummies, wind all the wool back into neat balls and put it all back in the lorry you nicked it from.
The Big Knit is instore from this week for all of November so if you fancy a fast wool-n-fruit fix, get yourself down your local Sainsbury's and bag your self some proper Big Knit bounty pronto.
Whilst as a company we make every effort to provide our drinkers with accurate and correct information on our packaging we, like many others, are prone to make mistakes on occasion.
So, we would like to take this opportunity to retract a statement we made on our packaging earlier this year regarding sharks in a state of none movement. As a drinker of ours has rightly noted (below) this was a misinformed and inaccurate statement. ----
I like your drinks (apart from the coconut one) but I wanted to take
issue with a fact that I saw on the side of one of your mango and
passion fruit smoothie cartons. It said that if sharks stop swimming
they die. This is true for some sharks but not for all. Some of them
like the nurse shark have an ability to pump water over their gills.
I've also seen black-tip reef sharks sleeping on the sea bed facing the
current so that they can sleep while the current brings fresh water over
their gills.
Just thought you might like to know - that's all really.
Avi
-----
We apologise for any offence or embarrassment caused to the aforementioned sharks. We're only human. Please don't come around to fruit towers and take issue with us. Row wouldn't especially like that. And thank you to Avi for pointing this out to us.
Everyone paid £2 a pop to pink themselves up and those who forgot their pink pullovers/pants were imaginative in their use of office stationery/stuff lying about the gym (think used pink raffle tickets over nipples and tights worn as headbands).
IT Samuel bagged the prize for best outfit
And the whole thing was organised by our very own pink lady, Bryony, who spent most of the day running round the office (just like last year).
Here she is in a blur of pink flurrying
And here she is pausing for breath.
Over in Hamburg, it was suitably rosa too (note the pink hat collections and good use of accessories)
And we're now counting up all the pound coins and 50ps to see how much we've raised.
Some drinks are so good they don't make you feel thirsty anymore.
Some are so good that they make feel pleasantly satisfied afterwards. And some are so good that they make you change your facebook profile picture in celebration like Tineke (above). As she rightly points out on our facebook page we've made a new smoothie and not really told anyone yet.
It's called cranberries, blueberries & cherries, it's our second ever banana-free smoothie (making it one of our most refreshing yet), and will be working it's way into the shops over the next week or two. Keep an eye out for it, and don't just take our word for it, take Tineke's too. You heard it here first.
Pictured from left to right we have hat hat, ghost hat, spider hat, pumpkin hat and cat hat all courtesy of Mrs Rosalind Good from Berkshire.
Any remaining hats need to be working their way to Fruit Towers as soon as possible where we are taking off our shoes and socks and readying ourselves for the grand annual hat count. Think of us this weekend whilst you're holding hands, shuffling through leaves, reading papers and roasting food stuffs. We'll be up to our necks in little woolly items.
A big thank you to everyone who took the time to get out the wool this year, and remember there's still a little time left, so please do package up any late comers.
Please say hello to Berly and Jean, expert knitters, friends of Age Concern, friends of The Big Knit and now stars of our new Big Knit Choir video (preparing to storm the xmas pop charts this year).
The single and video won't be out for a few weeks yet but you can get to know both Beryl and Jean a bit better in the below little film we made last year. We'll let our Joe (middle, blue t-shirt, slow knitting) pick up the conversation from here...
A few weeks ago, we ran a competition to win everything you needed for hosting your very own catchily named 'beat the back to school blues' party.
All you had to do was guess the weight of this small yet delicious cake (as modelled by Simon K)
The lady who came closest to guessing the correct weight (deceptively light at just 190g) was Sarah Jane from Saffron Walden.
As well as a boxful of party paraphanelia from Little Cherry, Sarah Jane and her kids also won a bumper box of cakes from Cupcake Dolly and a boxful of our finest kids drinks.
Sarah Jane sent in this photo of the pre party calm
And this photo of the pre party excitement.
Apparently, cake + smoothies + party games = surefire way to banish those double-maths-followed-by-cross-country blues.
Last year, Linda (who looks after the innocent foundation) knitted a myriad of hats for the Big Knit to represent all the countries in the world where the foundation supports projects.
For this years A/W 09 collection however, Linda has outknitted herself by whipping up hats to represent the type of projects the foundation supports.
From watering cans and garden tools (to represent projects like rainwater harvesting and sustainable agriculture training)
Through to fruit, veg and bees to represent crop production, income generation and setting up honey farms in Africa.
Hats off to Linda again for another stunning collection.
The deadline for all hats for this year's Big Knit is this Friday 30th October. So if you're sitting on a hoarde of hats or are just adding the finishing touches to your bebobbled creations, make sure to get them in the post quick sharp to hit this year's target.
Pete from Marlow sent us this photo of the new trolley ladies in his office, Amy and Rosie.
They spent a day at their dad's office on last week, pushing round their healthy food and drinks trolley to raise money for their school's charity project, Volunteer Uganda.
In total, they raised £230 and everyone at Softcat went home for the weekend, full of fruit and slightly emptier of pocket.
Having got the idea off the back of one of our kids' wedges, Amy very kindly sent us these photos of some sandwiches she made at her after school healthy eating club.
Unfortunately, she didn't give us the names of her creations, so we've had a go at naming them ourselves (NB headtiliting, squinting and daring to dream/imagine/squinting a lot more are required for these names to work)
First up is the wise old gnome king, resplendent with tomato beard, a fetching lettuce mohawk and lambchops to match.
Next is the somewhat cheeky but nevertheless charming Cucumber Specs, sporting a foppish basil barnet.
This one looks like a dragon. If you tilt your head to the left and squint a bit.
Jury is out on this one. A tomato cyclops? A self portrait of the artist, inspired by Picasso's tomato and basil period perhaps? Most definitely freaky.
And finally, a bread ghost with a vapour trail of camembert and little lettuce wings.
Seeing as it's Big Knit season, as well as the little hats for our smoothies and squeezies, we're also knitting lots of little warmers for our veg pots too.
The lovely ladies at Age Concern have been knitting their socks off but we still need a bit of a nudge to hit our whopping 620,000 winter woollen target.
So we're hoping that our hoardes of infamous knitters (that's you) can do their best to help out.
And when you're done whipping up your warmers, just pop them in an envelope (or small lorry) with your name, the amount you've knitted and send them to:
Big Knit Warmers, Fruit Towers, 3 The Goldhawk Estate, Brackenbury Road, London, W6 0BAThe closing date to get your warmers to us by is Friday 6th November, so plenty of time to get those needles trying something new.
Hardip on world premiere
alison on world premiere
vicki on world premiere
lucy on world premiere
Sara on world premiere
Carol on world premiere
Christine on world premiere
noelle farrell on meet the zombies
nicky on world premiere