Surprise

Two reports from today's The Daily Telegraph which shouldn't go unnoticed.
First, a New Zealand woman who died from cancer on Sunday placed her own death notice in the local paper. "If you are reading this you will have realised that I am no longer with you" wrote Lois Ngaire Causer, 76 ... "I ask you to celebrate my life. Although at times hard, on the whole I had a good innings". I'm not sure I could be composed enough to do it ... but it's one way of being prepared. The report was unclear as to whether publication of the notice came as a surprise to her family although it seems, it wouldn't really have surprised them given her eldest daughter's assurance that it was "quite characteristic for her to do things like that".
But in the other report, there was a fair degree of surprise for the family of a young boy who was recovering from emergency brain surgery on a subdural empema (abcess). Where he had had a strong Yorkshire accent previously, it seems to have been replaced by a "posh" accent, more reminiscent of Queen's English. He apparently is unable to hear the difference - and was quite surpirsed to see his family staring back at him trying to make sense of what they had heard.