evidence: At the earliest opportunity after your conference, on a Thursday afternoon, you set out aboard the Southern Line from Victoria Station. In western Kenya, the lake named after the queen who married her first cousin dominates the landscape of your ancestors: it is ‘true north’ for your people, the Luo of Kenya, who settled on its shores after drifting south along the Nile, from present-day Sudan via Uganda into what is now Kenya. They marked their territory in the lake basin, announcing their intention to stay permanently by building defence infrastructure: earthen reinforcements known as Gunda Bur, and a modest 500-year-old approximation of Great Zimbabwe, now designated as a world heritage site in Migori: Thimlich Ohinga. The lake’s original name is Lolwe, but even popular song lyrics – "Victoria, Dala gi Mama yo, Victoria Dala gi Baba yo" – claim Victoria, the dead, white and incestuous queen as home. In the UK, the coincidence that you boarded the Southern-bound train to your past at the station named for that same monarch was not lost on you. The 35-minute ride took you 35 years back in time. Time travel can be surprisingly banal.