River City

For those who don't get BBC Scotland, you can look up the latest episode of River City on iPlayer.

17 year old Nicole leaves her baby daughter alone so she can go to the pub with her cousin. The babysitter doesn't turn up and the baby is left alone. The neighbours hear the wee girl crying and call the baby's granny, who rushes home to find the baby alone. Thinking that something terrible has happened to Nicole (not realising she's just gone down the pub), Granny Leyla calls the police.

And then all hell breaks loose. There's threats to take the baby into care there and then. It's only because the copper in charge is a pal of Leyla's that they get to keep the baby at all, but it's still referred to Social Services and the mum is not allowed to be left alone with the baby anymore. Needless to say, there are no phone calls made to Sky News or Alex Salmond!

And it will be interesting to see how this plot line fleshes out in the coming weeks. Obviously it's not a pair of inflential and well connected doctors, but a silly wee lassie from Glasgow. Will there be a fund, Richard Branson offering money, and all the papers telling us that it's well within the bounds or reasonable parenting?

Now normally I only watch this awful show for the comedy element (Johnny Beattie still thinks he's in panto, and Tatiana's accent leaps from Ukranian to Scottish to Irish to Pakistani all in the same scene) but I thought it was an interesting storyline and interestingly timed. I'm curious to see how it will pan out.

Unfortunately there there have been a number of incidences similar to the McCann's abandonment of their 3 children, but none of the perpetrators have been smart enough to link their "mistake" to that allegedly made by the McCanns. I have always wondered why the lawyers of these people have never brought up the McCann defense in that everyone does it, it was only for a few minutes, we were checking every half an hour, etc.

Yes Iris , if the McCanns hadn't been Doctors with friends in high places and Madeleine's disappearance hadn't happened in Portugal but say Russia or any Middle East Country the McCanns would have been charged with neglect causing harm. Pity the Portugese were so squeamish.