Beware - rant in progress

Today I arrived home to find an email from a friend. He and his partner had been up all night with their blind, ailing, geriatric puss, who had sadly died this morning. Didn't help that it was my friend's birthday. After I had been around for a visit to commiserate for their loss it was decided that we would go to the pub for a "wee dram" or three. So there we were a rather forlorn group of four people sitting in the pub, but the ale soon lifted our spirits, and one of the group, who had recently returned from Nigeria was telling us about life in North West Africa. During the course of our evening a couple turned up and suddenly things turned very sour.

Basically, the female of the pair was a friend of mine for many years, but about a year ago decided to spread some lies about another friend in, of all places, her Livejournal. The other friend, lets call her Mrs A, was very upset about this and asked for a retraction of the lies and received abuse in return. Mrs A's husband then tried to get a retraction and he too had abuse hurled at him. He, however, was defending his wife's reputation so didn't back down at this point, hence their argument spilled over into my livejournal comment space. I told them both to stop it and grow up, where upon I got an apology from Mr A but abuse from the other woman. Now I have put up with this woman's tantrums for a number of years and to be honest they were growing thin. She seems to think that behaving like a petulant 5 year old is a virtue in a thirtysomething year old woman, which to be frank, it isn't. By this point she was slandering Mr A in on line forums by making people believe that he had had some sort of breakdown and had become a dangerous lunatic who was putting her health and safety in great danger.

Having had this argument thrust into my face and deciding to draw a line in the sand, which she very quickly crossed, I told her to grow up and act her age, to which her partner then started telling me that she was "unsocialised" and "didn't know that her behaviour was unacceptable" and that "I was responsible for her bad behaviour by not telling her it was wrong". When I pointed out that when you tell her her behaviour is unacceptable you get a torrent of abuse I was told I was "being unreasonable".

I was supposed to be the matron of honour at this woman's wedding but I told her that I wouldn't bestow such an honour on someone who though being abusive to friends was a good idea and I broke of contact with her. At this point her partner started telling anyone that would listen that I was "spreading obnoxious lies" about her. Of course, as the only things I had said about her were backed up by emails and other independant witnesses people soon got tired of hearing this. And so for nearly a near this couple have been trying to make the world believe that I am a dangerous lunatic.

Tonight was the last straw. They have made unsubstantiated accusations against people that I know just on the basis that they are talking to me. They are saying that they cannot even be in the same pub as me as I pose a physical threat to their safety (which bearing in mind that I was in the same pub for two hours and didn't even look at them) is patently fabricated, and this on top of telling people over the past year that I am a psychotic receiving psychiatric care (I'd like to see them prove that one in a court of law). I am so angry at the moment but I know that there is very little that I can do. Or at least there is very little that I can do that doesn't take me down to the same sewer that they live in.

Maybe I should just get my solicitor to issue a summons of slander against them. There are enough witnesses to prove my case....