Folk singer and eminent Canadian Joni Mitchell is attempting to locate the child she placed for adoption 31 years ago, in what the New York Post calls, "a desperate race against time." The time factor, according to the Post, our nation's oldest continuously published newspaper, is that Ms Mitchell's parents are, perhaps unexpectedly, getting older.

The baby, born to the then Roberta Joan Anderson and Brad McMath in Calgary, was carried to term, birthed and relinquished without the knowledge of Ms Mitchell's parents, who claim today they would have been supportive of the unwed mother.

The courts, at present, have offered scant relief to the searching folk singer, who also holds that her daughter must be informed of potential problems in her genetic background: Mitchell, adds the Post, in keeping with its philosophy to always leave a smile on readers' faces, suffered childhood polio.