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August 22, 2005

Sing Us a Song

Britain's mysterious Piano Man really wasn't. (link via fark)

The Mirror reported today that he told nursing staff he was German, had been working in Paris, but caught a Eurostar to England after losing his job. The newspaper says that he has now returned to Germany, where he has two sisters and his father owns a farm.

An insider at the Little Brook Hospital in Dartford, Kent, told the newspaper that the man had been attempting to commit suicide when he was picked up by police. He is said to have once worked with psychiatric patients and mimicked their characteristics to dupe doctors into believing that he was ill.

He's no virtuoso either.

When he was first discovered, the man refused to speak but when presented with a pen and paper, sketched a detailed picture of a grand piano. He was subsequently led to a piano in the hospital's chapel where his four-hour performance was described by Michael Camp, his social worker, as "really amazing".

Now it is suggested that he merely tapped at one key repeatedly.

It is surprisingly easy to fool those who want to be fooled.

Posted by Rita at August 22, 2005 03:42 PM

Comments

Aw, I was kinda hoping for a real life mystery. Too bad.

Posted by: yayaempress at August 23, 2005 01:17 PM

hi there. Funny, my blog is "res ipsa loquitur" as well. Here's the link in case u have some time to kill:
http://spaces.msn.com/members/noontide35/

"Piano man" is one of my favorite song. There is this radio station in Boston that will play this song EVERY Sat evening 9pm. And i tried to listen to it every time.
btw, I, too, have an almost unhealthy obssession over Emily Dickionson and Virgina Woolf.

Posted by: noontide at August 23, 2005 09:44 PM

Hi noontide. Emily's one of my favorites, though I'm not much of a poetry fan.

I know, Yaya, me too. Now the only mystery is how he fooled them for so long.

Posted by: Rita [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 24, 2005 04:01 AM