some stuff that has happened in fruit towers recently but might have escaped your attention

1. Scott K's girlfriend, Jen, made Hester's cake using our kiwis, apples and limes smoothie. It went down a treat. In case you weren't sold first time round.

2. IT Samuel (who you may recognise as Sustainable Gorilla or Pink Bishop on a Lunch Break) got his sister to illustrate his most recent cast with some fish. To date, Samuel has broken all his toes, 4 fingers, his coccyx, wrist and his right heel as well as tearing his Achilles tendon, lightly shredding some knee cartilage and putting a gardening fork through his foot (plus the welly he was wearing at the time). He also tore his right bicep, failed to get it repaired and now only has a monocep. So his sister has her work cut out.

3. Postman Pat came to visit

 

So now you're up to date. 

richard of york gave battle in vain

 

 

And we spent Friday disguised as a giant ice lolly to show our support for Earth Hour.

calling all budding directors...

...there's no time like the now.

As part of our mini movies competition, we've got some rather special little film makers' kits to give away. We've spoken to lots of film makers over the past few months, and enclosed in these kits are the things that they said they'd be lost without*.

 
*think more along the lines of sticks, strings and minature sized train models than champagne, giant dinosaurs and red carpets...

Click here. Make haste. There are mini movies to be made.

 

Monday mini movie magic

With just less than 3 weeks to go until submission deadline (April 17th), we're officially getting excited about the world of mini movies...

On Friday, we were totally blown away by this piece of grape yelping brilliance:

We spent a bit of time earlier in the week with our heads in the clouds as this bit of movie magic came in:

In a very close second place, we saw panic in the playground and the perils of peckishness being thwarted:

But the winner of this week's competition, awarded to the video submitted between last Monday and this one that racked up the most views, was this little fella:

Congratulations and a big thanks to all those of you who have entered so far. For those of you currently creating a little masterpiece, get those entries in now- there are £200 of amazon vouchers to be snapped up this week for the entry that gets the most views between now and Monday noon next week. And if you who've entered so far but not won the weekly prize remember this- the weekly contest has no bearing on the final result as this will be judged on the basis of creativity and adherance to the brief, by our special panel.

To get involved in the mini movies competition and to win the chance of having your work shown on primetime TV, pocketing a cool £5000 and winning 2 special tickets to the BFI London film festival, just go here to find out more.

your words, our labels (part 2)

We ran a caption competition last month asking you to tell us what words should accompany our lemur on our next round of orange and apple juice labels. After a side-splitting session reading through all the suggestions we eventually selected Leyla's caption as our winner (you can see the rest of our favourites here).

We were so impressed with the quality of the captions first time round that we thought we'd run the competition again, and give you all another chance to try your hand at becoming a published innocent writer.

 

So, you know the drill - what is this sheep thinking, saying, or playing at? 

Just post your caption as a comment below, and we'll announce the winner in a few weeks' time. The top ten runners up will each get a load of innocent goodies, and the winning caption will be printed on our juice labels alongside the sheep this summer, and read by gazillions* of people. Fact.

**Competition now extended to Wednesday 11th May** Good luck.

*last time we checked, gazillion wasn't a real number, but who's counting?

wearing bright clothes makes you happier

 

It also makes you more intelligent, more likely to win at bingo and less likely to be hit by a car. One pitfall to be aware of is an increased attractiveness to birds seeking to offload the remnants of their tuna sarnie lunch, but a nice bright umbrella is more than enough protection and a key accessory this season.

If you need any further convincing, just check out this chameleon. Happy as Larry he is, and completely irresistible to all the lovely lady chameleons out there.

 

To show our support for Earth Hour we'll be coming into work tomorrow dressed in the brightest gear we can find. But as fashion alone isn't enough to save the planet, we'll also be turning our lights off on Saturday at 8.30pm and thinking about what else we can do to make a difference once they come back on. We'd love you to join us.

lemur label winner

A few weeks ago we announced our competition to get your words on our juice labels. All you had to do was provide us with a caption to go under this little guy.

 

First up, here's a selection of runners-up:

"First to blink loses."  by Lilly Potter

"I am so excited right now. Just look at my face...so excited." by Tom

"When I get out of here I'm going to find a nice spot in the country, work the land, and grow old with my wife." by Tom Pryke

"That's it. Keep working that mysterious look. She'll notice yo- yep, she's spotted you, you handsome devil, you" by Hannah bates

"Paul couldn’t hide the fact he thought holding a giant cucumber for the photo shoot was absolutely ridiculous." Dudley.

"One final turn, now hold it, hold it and you've nailed the part, you rascal." by Adam Justice

"Quick, look busy, David Attenborough's coming." by Julie Ramsden

"And by the way, when I said your tail was the longest I've ever seen? I was lying." by Sarah

"Yeah, actually you did wake me up" by Rob Falconer

"You looking at me? YOU LOOKING AT ME?? Ah, wait, that's a mirror." by Amebeecomps

Now, drum-roll please. And the winner is Leyla, with the following:

"Between 10 and 5 they said. It is now 5.30."

Congratulations everyone, we'll be in touch with every runner-up and Leyla to send you each some innocent prizes. Watch this space for our next caption competition.

ramblings about riding

 
Sometimes you get days when you get on your bike, ride for ages, and think you could keep going and going.

Hopefully next Sunday is going to be one of those days for our very own Mr Ed and his girlfriend Lizzie (pictured here at last year's Thriller video shoot looking fractionally less attractive than they do normally). They're heading off together from Shepherd's Bush to ride 2,500 miles across Europe to Istanbul, and raise a lot of money for a good cause in the process.

Training has consisted of eating loads of peanut butter and marmite sandwiches and cycling around West London with books weighing down their panniers. If you'd like to follow their progress (and pain) over the next two and a half months they'll be updating their own catchily named blog: http://transeuropeextremeoneathlon.blogspot.com/ 

Good luck and God speed, Mr Ed and Lady Lizzie. We'll be thinking of you.

are you afraid of the dark?

 

At 8.30pm this Saturday it is global earth hour, where people all over the world will be turning off their lights and pledging their support for the planet. This won't be a problem at all for Delia, who told us some time ago how she's helping tackle climate change. Please take care if trying this at home though, Delia does eat a lot of carrots. It's probably also best to keep your eyes open.

 

 

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off to take a stand against climate change. Earth Hour 2010 was the biggest yet, with a record 128 countries and territories joining in the global display of climate action.

 

  

This year's Earth Hour takes place on Saturday 26 March at 8.30PM (local time), and as well as being the perfect opportunity to finally do that moonlit treasure hunt/ghost story marathon/sponsored silence in the dark* you've been planning, it's a chance to think about what else you can do to make a difference once the lights are back on.

So get involved, switch off the lights and anything else you can do without for the hour (hair straighteners included) and get ready for some good clean wholesome (and potentially candlelit) fun.

 

*any other suggestions for how to spend the time will be gratefully received, we're really struggling.

a little film about little films

On a very rainy Saturday four weeks ago, we held a little workshop here at Fruit Towers to launch our mini movies competition.  Ben Wheatley- film director, very funny chap, and the maker of our superhero ad- spent the day with us, talking about his own experience, sharing top tips, and helping our film makers' make their own little mini movies on the day.

This is our little video about the day- thanks to Mark and Dan for all the time they put into making this for us: 

To find out how you could get your work on TV, and win £5000, take a peak here here.