Unusual Illnesses: Curiouser and Curiouser

The ability to sit at a piano and croon with an accent like Charles Aznavour's is for many the acme of seductiveness. And people will pay to ensure their French accent is as perfect as their command of the Gallic idiom. But what if you woke one morning to find your usual Liverpudlian tones supplanted by a heavy French accent?

For those with a little-known neurological condition called Foreign Accent Syndrome, that question is not an idle consideration but a day-to-day reality. Kay Russell, a 49-year-old from Gloucestershire found herself subject to a media maelstrom last week when it was reported that she woke from an afternoon nap to find her clipped Home Counties accent supplanted by a distinctly Gallic lilt. Having endured a series of hemiplegic migraines that caused minor brain damage, it is highly unlikely that her former accent will return.'

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