Scarcely has the World Youth Day ended than we are confronted with this:
bq. ‘Piano Man’ turns out to be Bavarian farm boy
bq. BERLIN – The mysterious Piano Man who fooled doctors in Britain for months by pretending to be mentally ill was back in his native Germany Monday after admitting to having staged an elaborate hoax.
Pretending to be mentally ill and pretending to play the piano, apparently:
bq. The patient was nicknamed Piano Man after reports that he entertained hospital staff with a remarkable talent for classical recitals. When medics gave him a pen and paper, he drew detailed pictures of a grand piano.
bq. However, the report said he could only tap one key continuously on the piano in the hospital chapel and that he only drew a picture of a piano because that was the first thing that came into his head.
It sounds as if quite a few people were pretending to be mentally ill.
Thanks again to Abnu of Wordlab for this Internet exclusive. Doesn’t seem to have hit the British press yet (and apparently the NHS Trust is ashamed).
LATER NOTE: Rainer Langenhan links to a German version of the story.
Hi Margaret
I heard this on BBC news this afternoon …so it did hit the British media if not the press. There does seem to be some confusion though about whether he in fact can play anything resembling music…..
Paul
Ah, thanks, Paul – I didn’t find it on the BBC website.
That is the most amazing thing, if he only tapped one key continuously and we heard all this stuff about his classical recitals. I don’t suppose it’s Daniel Küblböck, is it?
Margaret, you should have noticed that the piano-tuner tramp in your back-garden shed in Middle Franconia/Bavaria had gone missing for so long.
No way, he would have called himself a Franconian. This bloke is from Alt-Ötting, mark my words.
Hi Margaret,
Actually the best story about this man was printed yesterday in two (2) Italian newspapers. According to the Italian press, Piano Man was a German gay psychiatrist. Later in the day, they changed the story: Pianoman is a 20 years old man who used to work with mentally ill patients.
Che vergogna!! ;-)