17-05-2005 05:29									#31
	Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

quote: Originally posted by vovan Right.

Take a more careful look, it definately looks like the same guy.

	17-05-2005 15:21									#32
	bump Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Indeed does.

They've received 160 calls.

	17-05-2005 16:39									#33
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

It was suggested that he was a Swedish pianist due to give a concert at the Wigmore Hall in London in a few days, but the real pianist was shocked when the police turned up at his flat in Stockholm because he wasn't aware of the story.

I really, really hope that this isn't just a publicity stunt for a new film or whatever. Or worse, part of a student "art" project.

	17-05-2005 18:02									#34
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

most chances are it is, duke.

	17-05-2005 21:29									#35
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

I've been leaning toward that position for the last hours...

	18-05-2005 17:45									#36
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

he might be identified.

	18-05-2005 17:46									#37
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

as who?

	18-05-2005 22:23									#38
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

hey, that's my cousin Ricardo.

damn, I told him not to go to the US on a raft full of illegal immigrants. I said: "there are some strong currents in the Atlantic this time of year, pal". And he said: "I'll try it anyway, what do I have to lose?"

Now we see what he lost.

	22-08-2005 17:07									#39
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

quote: Originally posted by Winston It seems a bit peculiar that they haven't managed to elicit any kind of response from him, spoken or written, in over a month. Not that it's unheard of, but I think in this case something doesn't add up, it's a hoax.

Sure enough, a hoax. It's now being reported that last Friday, the guy spoke for the first time and admitted he'd been fooling everybody for 4 months. The man explained he's German, and had been fired from his job in Paris. He'd boarded a train to Britain in order to end his life on the Sheerness beach.

He's worked with mentally ill people in the past, and applied his knowledge of their behaviour to pull off his hoax. On Saturday, he was sent on a plane to Germany, to be re-united with his father and two sisters.

End of story.

	22-08-2005 17:13									#40
	Got spare money?

no, he will be prosecuted for fraud


now it´s End of story

	22-08-2005 17:28									#41
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

He's illegal immigrant trying to fool You. His clothes in which he was found were cleared of any signs of where he came from (like labels).

	22-08-2005 18:21									#42
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

gah! i feel used - he must have been pretty cut up by his job loss to go through all this(and put his family through it) - some people have no perspective on life. Hope his wife(or gaurdian of his kids) gives him hell

	22-08-2005 18:49									#43
	Increase Your PM Length

Don't think there's any kids, the article said he's a homosexual. I left it out because I thought it irrelevant. Pissed me off a little actually that it was mentioned. It also said his father's a farmer, again I fail to see the relevance. But we're kinda stuck with the pathetic media that we have in this world.

	22-08-2005 19:27									#44
	Support Apolyton

winston should be beaten for bumping this shitty thread

	22-08-2005 21:39									#45
	Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

Mystery "Piano Man" returns to Germany

37 minutes ago

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German man who baffled police and care workers after being found wandering in a suit near a southern English beach, soaking wet and refusing to speak, has returned to Germany after four months in care.

The man was dubbed the "Piano Man" by the media after supposedly giving a virtuoso piano performance while being treated in a psychiatric unit, where doctors failed to identify him despite being inundated with suggestions.

The 20-year-old from the southern state of Bavaria returned home on Saturday after the German embassy had verified his nationality and provided him with replacement documents, a German foreign ministry spokesman said on Monday.

He declined to give the man's name or say where he was now living.

British health authorities said on Monday the man had been released after making a "marked improvement" but would not give any further details.

A report in the Daily Mirror newspaper said the man had finally broken his silence, revealing that he was German and had been trying to commit suicide after losing his job in Paris when he was picked up by police.

The newspaper said he had previously worked with mentally ill patients and had copied some of their characteristics.

Doctors were quoted four months ago as saying the man had drawn a grand piano after being given a pen and paper and had later played classical music on a chapel piano for hours.

The Mirror cast doubt on that, saying he could "hardly play a note."

	22-08-2005 22:28									#46
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

ah free speech journalism!

	22-08-2005 22:43									#47
	Inflate your Upload Space

The story always was too good to be true.

	22-08-2005 22:44									#48
	Remove this text

... almost as good as faded glory.

	22-08-2005 23:48									#49
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

The Mirror

And Im not convinced 'marked improvement' is psychiatric double talk for 'hoax'. I would like to hear that from the guy himself.

	22-08-2005 23:58									#50
	Full PM-box? Change here!

The article, in Danish, that I read in the paper presented it as a hoax, and also included the two pieces of irrelevant information I mentioned.

	23-08-2005 00:13									#51
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

The Mirror is presenting it as an 'exclusive' from an unnamed insider at the hospital. The Mirror quotes the insider as saying all the bits about gay farmers and whatnot. I trust unnamed sources in trashy tabloids about as far as I can throw them

	23-08-2005 00:15									#52
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization: The Boardgame

I just looked through Google News, and just about all stories mention all the same things, so it's certainly not just an exclusive of one trashy tabloid (unless everyone copied it from The Mirror).

	23-08-2005 00:26									#53
	Suffering from ads?

Well, the Times quotes the Mirror, and the Daily Mail has the hoax news acording to 'newspaper reports'.

google news/bangkok post made me LOL ''Piano Man' a jobless gay from Bavaria' They start by saying that he admited it was a hoax, but later say their their quotes are accorind to a 'London newspaper report.'

	23-08-2005 00:42									#54
	Full PM-box? Change here!

I don't see what the problem is with the reporting, apart from the concerns about relevance I raised earlier.

I don't think there's anything particularly strange about the papers referencing eachother. That's the way many news stories are spread in different papers. Whether it spreads sufficiently, as in this case, is really the choice of the different editors, and the confidence they place in the original or subsequent sources.

	23-08-2005 11:08									#55
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Regardless of whether you trust the source (I dont, but I know that the mirror is glorified trash, with a habit for sensationalising stories) it doesnt mean that the piano man was faking it. As some Scottish Doc says at the end of the mirror article, he could have been suffering from catatonic schizophrenia or severe depression. I dont remember the piano man ever saying he couldnt talk, its a shame this guy is getting grief for being mentally ill.

also, I dont think the mirror insider said the piano man was faking it, the hoax angle was the mirrors spin on the story

	23-08-2005 11:18									#56
	Increase the size of your Attachments

I see your point. The reports of this being a hoax could have been exaggerated by the newspapers.

But it's a little mystifying then why he only spoke for the first time Friday, and the day after he was on a plane back home. If it wasn't all just an act on his part, they'd have kept him longer than that, in order to make sure he was fit to release.

In any case, it may be fair to assert that he's not at all well...