Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond today signed an historic agreement to send two giant Scottish neds (non educated delinquents) to the People’s Republic of China. It is the first time these two particular Scottish neds have been out of the country since an infamous trip to Ibiza in 2001.
The deal is part of a multi-billion pound plan to sell off the less useful members of Scottish society to the Chinese, who are developing a process of melting them down and using them as a form of industrial glue.
The pair, named Shuggie and Senga, are breeding neds, who are expected to produce an near endless litter of cubs or ‘weans’ at the Chinese people’s expense.
Grant McDougall, Professor of NED studies at the University of Dundee, said: “Neds actually breed very easily in captivity, which is why they are rarely allowed to share a cell.”
The neds will be under the custodianship of the Chinese Wildlife Conservation Association, who have turned a former monkey house into a suitable ‘nedquarters’.
“We’ve put in a top of the range plasma screen,” said keeper Tian Lee, “and there are mobile phones so the parents can communicate with their young. Greggs, the sponsors of the programme, will ensure that the neds are able to enjoy their staple diet of Irn Bru and pies, and we also have a wide selection of takeaway menus available should they decide to get a film out.
“If you close your eyes and face away from the bars you’d get almost no sense that this was once a monkey enclosure, although we have left the tyre on a rope. We reckon that’ll come in handy till we get their Kinect hooked up.”
Traditionally, the only neds conceived or born overseas have been in Spain.
However, a programme of school trips during the late 1990’s meant that neds approaching their natural breeding age (10 for males, 13 for females) had the opportunity to spawn as far afield as France, the Rhineland and Guernsey.
Not everyone has welcomed the decision though, with wildlife campaigners and other people in pullovers expressing welfare concerns.
“Neds are pack animals,” protested Sophie Greenwood, a ned psychologist, “Out of their natural habitat it is likely that these two lone neds will simply pull their caps down and sit hunkered in a corner of their cage, looking shifty.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish government dismissed suggestions the neds would find it hard to adjust to life in China, insisting that both neds were very excited about visiting the country where their colourful trainers are made.
