Welcome to my Book Club first book of 2024. This is the book I am just about to start reading having just finished my last one, a murder mystery.
Prior to DH and I starting our business, my job was working in the law which was very interesting and I worked over ten years in all aspects of it including matrimonial, crime, conveyancing & Wills and business law. I had some great experiences including being in court at trials so books regarding this always fascinate me.
However this legal argument came out of a very modern part of most people’s lives.
Mrs Coleen Rooney is married to one of Britains best footballers, Wayne Rooney. They were childhood sweethearts and married when quite young when Wayne started playing for top football clubs in the UK. We, as a family, do not watch or follow football but you could not fail to know of him and then of course Coleen. They have not had as high a profile of say Victoria & David Beckham but certainly are up there. They have had their ups and downs which of course always play out in the media, generally the tabloids, but this event exploded because of a post on social media.
Like most famous people Mrs Rooney has social media accounts but also has a personal Instagram account which is for family and close friends. However in 2018, whilst pregnant with her fourth child she found that stories from this personal Instagram account were being leaked to the press. This continued into 2019 and so she decided to try and find out who it was to get them to stop. In a very, I think, clever way she did and posted it onto all her social media sites which account was doing it…… Rebekah Vardy’s account! This was in the hope that once named the leaking of stories would stop.
Of course this made the media lose their minds and in the end the trending word which went all around the world was “Wagatha Christie” (which has now been tradmarked by Mrs Rooney’s opponent Rebekah Vardy!).
Rebekah Vardy is also married to a footballer, Jamie Vardy, and he and Wayne were in the England team together.
Needless to say Mrs Vardy had some dreadful things said about her on social media by trolls which of course is never acceptable, however looking at it from Coleen’s side it was not acceptable for her private information being shared in the tabloids. Mrs Vardy denied all knowledge of the leaks and took Mrs Rooney to The High Court in London for Defamation in 2022. Again another media frenzy during the trial and of course lots of programmes about the trial and the whole saga afterwards.
In the UK the law is that the person being sued for defamation and libel has to prove that they did not defame the complainint rather than they have to prove they did. The result of the trial was that Mrs Vardy was found to be “an unreliable witness” amongst other things and lost her case.
There is a programme on Disney+ where Mrs Rooney is being interviewed about the whole thing which is fascinating and this is the first time since the trial she has spoken fully about it. The book is not just about the trial and series of events but about her early life as well.
To me watching the programme and a couple of the others it changed my mind about the Rooneys and in particular Mrs Rooney. Up to now most of the information about them has been through the media and we all know that that is quite often biased or lacking in actual information. I would recommend the Disney programme as it is fascinating and am looking forward to reading the book.
Happy January and Happy Reading.
Hugs & Love, Susie xx
PS We all love libraries and they really are great institutions so that people have access to books for free. Anyway I saw this the other day on Instagram (!) and thought I would show you it.
How great is this. Even our doggies get a library!
There was an article in the newspaper the other day that Dogs who are actors are having to say how they identify on their paperwork! So Mom said this was my description:
Mom has been in the sewing room for a few days and I get to snooze in this bed when she is and it is really comfy. In fact it gets moved into Youngest’s room at night where I have been sleeping recently. 
