I wanted to laugh at him, at this conspiratorial notion of Britain sub regno exploratorum. It was not a country I recognised—but Annie and Colson both did, both accepted it as an article of faith. I looked up at the sky, at the benign orange glow of the city reflected in low cloud, and saw it abruptly in a new mode—the sun a scorching eye of scrutiny deflected from us only by the ambient indifference of fog and mist.