Hola, cochinillos.  It’s Sarah today.  There’s a feverish tiny tot being all gross and riddled with germs in my house at the moment, so I’ve gotten a bit of a late start today.  Anyway, speaking of children, remember that little girl from Slumdog Millionaire?  Yeah, her father totally tried to sell her.  From the Daily Mail:

The father of the child star who won hearts across the world for her role in Slumdog Millionaire denies he offered her up for adoption for £270,000.

Rubina Ali, who played the young Latika in the Oscar-winning film, was reportedly put up for adoption by father Rafiq Qureshi – for a hefty asking price.

But he now denies he was trying to ‘sell’ Rubina, 9, to undercover newspaper reporters. Rafiq claims he believed he was discussing a ‘well-paying’ film role and would never put his children up for sale.

An undercover investigation by the News of the World reportedly discovered that Rafiq was offering Rubina to a wealthy Middle Eastern family for adoption.

When the deal fell through, the paper contacted the girl’s family under the pretence of adopting her. Rubina’s uncle is believed to have confirmed the family were interested in ‘selling’ the young star for millions of rupees.

‘Yes, we are interested in securing our girl’s future… Obviously if you wanted to adopt we could discuss this, but her parents would also expect some proper compensation in return,’ the paper quoted the uncle as saying.

But Rubina’s father now denies the allegations.

Slumdog director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson have set up a fund for Rubina and her young co-star Azharuddin Ismail to give them a proper education, decent housing and support to cope with their fame.The child stars have also each been given a luxury apartment in Kerala, south India, by the sound engineer who worked on the film.

But Rubina’s father claims the family have seen nothing of the promised rewards.

‘We haven’t got anything yet, it’s all supposed to come later,’ he told the undercover reporters.

The family then reportedly offered Rubina for the price of 20million rupees – around £270,000.

You know, India sounds like a delightful place to raise a family.  This story would really warm the cockles of my heart, if only I knew what the holy hell heart cockles were.