After his mother’s death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that it impacted his performance: “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict. But I didn’t get any work done. I’d get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I’d have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You’ve set mathematics back a month.”

At this time of year, at this time of the day, in this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?!

I was born in the UK but with a West Indian and an actual Indian grandparent on one side. Lived there my entire life up until relatively recently. There were still people who would consider me not British. When people either in the UK or where I live now ask where I’m from and I tell them I’m British, there are many people who say “but where are you really from?”

But it doesn’t mean anything if I say I’m Jamaican, or Indian, because one I’ve been to for some odd trips as a kid and the other I only transferred through an airport. Yeah my DNA shows that, but my entire life has basically minimal connection to either of those places and a continuous connection to Britain.

I got the accent and the passport, but I didn’t get the skin colour. So these people will always exist who want to make it seem like I’m not “really” British. But that is on them, not me. I am British, whether they like it or not.

This is really a long winded way of saying: there will always be some people who consider you not truly British. Fuck them. They are idiots that have at best shackled themselves to some outdated view of what it means to be “British” and at worst want to shutter the whole country off to anyone who doesn’t look or speak like them and pull us all back to the stone age.

I think if you speak to people you are close with about this they would consider you British. If you speak with Baz down at the Red Lion he’ll ask you for a pierogi and then fall asleep in his own vomit after a few too many pints of carling. I think Baz is much less important than all of the real people in your life and most of all, the way you view yourself.

I haven’t downvoted you.

That said, there is clearly some crucial information you are not sharing. If you want help it’s better to be up front. I still don’t understand why you would report it now if he went missing 7 years ago. Why not then?

What actually happened when he left? What was his friend doing there?

Why was his friend there? What happened?

Were you living with your husband at the time?

So seven years ago, what happened? Did he just disappear one day?

How come you haven’t seen him in person in so long? How long has he been missing?

Lagrangian quantum field theory is much better fight me