smoking, East Enders, dripping

Smoking hand.

There have been a number of  complaints about the story line in the soap opera called East Enders set in the East End of London. Some readers objected to the episode in which a new born baby died in in its cot. What most upset them was that the distraught mother succeeded in substituting her child for a neighbour's child born at more or less the same time.  Strong stuff, but an old story if you refer to the account in Kings 1 Chap 3 of the two harlots in similar circumstances, who came before King Solomon, each claiming that the living child was hers. Remember how the king commanded a sword to be brought.
"And the king said, divide the living child in two, and give half to the one and half to the other. The spake the  woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it; she is the mother thereof. But the other said, let it by be neither mine nor thine, but divide it. Then the king answered and said, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it: she is the mother thereof.

Not raining today, rather dripping. The sort of English day  of which you might dream in the middle of a dessert.