Dr Graziella Magherini, author of The Stendhal Syndrome, has studied more than 100 tourists in Florence, Italy, who became ill in the presence of great works of art. The symptoms include heart palpitations, dizziness, and stomach pains. The typical sufferer is between the ages of 26 and 40 who rarely leaves home..

Dr Magherini believes the syndrome is a result of jet lag, travel stress, and the shock of an overwhelming sense of the past. She says: “Very often there’s the anguish of death.’ The disorder is named after a nineteenth-century French novelist who was overwhelmed by the frescoes in Florence’s Santa Croce Church.
Particularly upsetting works of art are: Michaelangelo’s statue of David, Caravaggio’s painting of Bacchus, and the concentric circles of the Duomo cupola.

There are about 50 recorded cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome, in which people who have suffered strokes or other injuries adopt a new accent. For example, Tiffany Roberts of Florida suffered a stroke and then began speaking with an English accent. She even adopted such Anglicisms as ‘bloody’ and ‘loo’. Ms Roberts had never been to Great Britain, and was not a fan of British television shows.

Perhaps the oddest case concerned a Norwegian woman who had fallen into a coma after being hit by shrapnel during an air raid in 1941. When she woke up, she spoke with a thick German accent. She was then ostracised by her neighbours.

aaaand im back on track…soo no affence to rita, i like your work, but its a bit like ..”ooohh im travelling the world without a male, im so fit and mysterious..i am now going to list all the crazy/cool/badass things i’ve done and im not going to give and of my personal judgements “…well you know what Rita i would really like to know how you feel about that.

Result: i would like my work to be very subjective exposing the thoughts/emotions/judgments/feeling and general opinion on many things of the character . I would like the work to pull you in so you think to yourself “I could approach that character and be all like hey (insert name) i like how you think”.

I am now going to advice myself to hit the hays before i become a public liability with my fatigued rambelings and am tranquilized.

The situation was not helped by the fact that my direct relatives decided this was perfect “bonding” time for us and preceeded to indulge in painful activites that im sure will be worked through later in therapy. Being forced by youger sibling to repeat and learn the names of our current bout of fish that will, no doubt, soon follow their predecescors who die bi weekly, was one of the many “fun” activities we indulged in; i particularily enjoyed the knowlege that i would now be at liberty to call one of my tank dwelling pal’s for a game of fetch-the-fish-food or tell them off when they are “playing” dead.  The post-it on the fish tank reading -ron,orangey one. Harry-splotchy,brown and white one. Hermione-wild looking, large redish one. etc. is a lasting remnant of that trauma.

In an act of pure desperation myself and Twin unwittingly introduced my next of kin to a game involving an individual singing the words of a random book to a tune that then  then has to be guessed by theaudience . I might have known that this would unleash the beast that is my mother. She would not stop. Or at least only for Pa’s turn, who was then ridiculed as Mother fell to the floor unable to conrol her mirth (or bladder for that matter) as he struggled to emit a sound even slighty reminicent of “music”. Even when it all became to much for us and we escaped  mother continued to sing all the more robustly even going as far as following us to our respective hide outs.

Im sure that night will manifest in some horrific mental disorder in my later life.

adue.