Population forecasters are tinkling in their tighty whities. The clearest indication yet that life expectancy in Scotland is plummeting has sent shockwaves through the back of a fag packet totter community.
Experts in looking at women and assessing their relative ages examined Scottish Widows adverts over the past few decades and have declared that they are definitely getting younger. Professor Iain James explained, 'We went back all of the way to the the 1980s and had a stab at guessing the ages of each Scottish Widow smirking knowingly in her black hooded cape.
'What we found was shocking. Firstly, there was not one wrinkly old Scottish Widow with missing teeth in her 70s. There was one who might have been in her late forties, but her skin was as smooth as a plump haggis and her perfect white teeth glistened in the Glasgow rain.
'But I'm afraid it gets much sexier. You can see that every few years each one is replaced with a younger model: Early forties; then late thirties; and by the 2010s she is early thirties, tops.
'In the latest Scottish Widows advert she looks about 23. That can't mean anything else other than the men they were married to are dying much, much younger than we had previously dared consider.
'At these rates, we estimate the population of Scotland will be -17 in 2041.'
