Crazy chick
Sunday, July 17, 2016 at 9:31
Simon Clark

On Monday I reported that Annie Dressner, a little known American singer-songwriter based in Cambridge, had launched a petition calling for a ban on smoking near children's playgrounds.

We'd both been quoted in last week's Sunday Times and later went head-to-head on BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Tees.

I noticed a slight hardening of attitude between the first and second interviews which was confirmed when she blocked me, Forest and Forest Ireland from following her on Twitter or viewing her tweets.

Not sure why but I may have annoyed her by mentioning – on air – that we had seen her tweets and found it strange she'd been tweeting the minister of health in France about her campaign.

Anyway, what Dressner doesn't know is that Forest has multiple Twitter accounts, some linked to old campaigns, so her blocking manoeuvre hasn't stopped us viewing her efforts to drum up support.

And some of those efforts are impressive, if optimistic. To echo David Cameron in relation to Jeremy Corbyn, "I'm beginning to admire her tenacity."

Here, for example, is a list of some of the people Annie Dressner tweeted last week. They include:

Little Mix
Claudia Winkleman
Kerry Katona
Katie Price
Colleen Rooney
Emily Blunt
Dr Alice Roberts
Victoria Beckham and
... Adele

Naturally, with the Rio Olympics a few weeks away, she's targeted not only individual Olympians (Jessica Innis and Louis Smith among them) but also Team GB (the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic team).

More bizarre still, she's tweeted Liv Tyler, the American actress who lives in New York, and – wait for it – Taylor Swift!!!! (Whoever next – Tom Hiddleston?!)

The list goes on and on and on. She's even tweeted Tour de France winner Chris Froome who I suspect may have other things on his mind at present.

You couldn't make it up.

Amusingly Dressner has also tweeted some leading vaping advocates, among them Clive Bates who, to date, hasn't replied.

As far as I can tell only one of the above names has responded positively (or at all) to Dressner's frantic messaging and that was TV presenter Dr Alice Roberts.

And, boy, wasn't Annie grateful:

@DrAliceRoberts I am so grateful that you, and educated and respected person, has agreed with this! I have a lot of people telling me off.

— Annie Dressner (@AnnieDressner) July 14, 2016

Update: Despite the support of Roberts, Julie Barrett (director of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health Wales) and the British Lung Foundation, Dressner's petition seems to be losing momentum.

Launched on July 1, it currently has 2,630 signatures, with just 16 added in the last 24 hours.

Given the publicity she enjoyed earlier in the week that's pretty feeble. Then again the majority of callers to Radio Ulster and Radio Tees made it clear what they thought of her idea so it's not that surprising. (You can listen to a podcast of the Radio Ulster debate here.)

My message to Annie Dressner? Good luck with your new album. Let's hope you have better luck flogging that!

Article originally appeared on Simon Clark (http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/).
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