Hey, come oan, JeffB, wait a wee minute, just because I hunt efter the wurrds of auld sangs with the dogged ferocity of a Gorbals Diehard disnae mean I haunt the Charity Shops of Empires like a superfluous veteran of the stage appearing on a Celebrity quiz show, hoping to find something to cherish even if it be only the faded remnants and echoes of the times that are no more. Ah'm no' pickie, by the way! I will switch codes enigmatically, systematically, drastically and with a rascally demeanour, the meaner the better, for while not all the streets are mean this is No Mean City, ken whit Ah mean, pal? Doan' mess, right?! Doan' mess wi' me! Awww, ye waant it in Laaaaa-tin, dae ye?

"Nemo me impune lacessit" has been rendered "Wha daur meddle wi me?" but in the spirit of demotic appropriateness I suggest "Naeb'day taks a haun at me an gets away wi't", though some scholars from the West of Scotland prefer to construe the root verb in the motto as "chib". We sent them homewards, to think of a better ending.

I'd better end, for 'tis the bitter end, the End of Imperial Squalor.
Would a sense of humour be a value or a characteristic?