You know, the one who they found wandering around, soaking wet and he wouldn’t talk, but when they put him in front of a piano, he started playing?
As far as I’m aware, there’s no new developments. Google News turns up nothing worthwhile for ‘piano man’ for the last couple of weeks.
However, if there had/have been developments, and he has been identified, you can also expect the trail to go cold, because patient confidentialiy returns to its primary position.
I’ve been keeping an eye out for developments. His story really fascinates me.
What a curious instance of life imitating art. This story uncannily parallels the plot of the recent English movie Ladies in Lavender. In that story, a classical violinist from Poland washes up on the shore of England. He doesn’t talk either (at first).
In an article in the *Sydney Morning Herald * a while ago, one of the doctors involved said they may never know who he is. Not promising.
That just does not seem possible. How the heck can a modern European go missing?
(Of course, the events seem to be proving my contention wrong. Still it seems it ought not to be possible.)
So, he can’t speak.
Can he write?
Unless there is something I don’t know about Europe, I’d think it easy. What if the guy has no family (or, has long ago broken off all contact with his family), and no close friends? Let’s say that the above his true, the lease wherever he lives in runs out, and he decides to hit the road. Who is going to report him missing?
I’ll bet if they threatened him with a cricket bat he’d talk.
Kidding! 
Direct deposit, national health records, national ID cards (until recently) conscription paperwork, plus he is a piano player! This does not seem hard at all, although I admit I am obviously wrong.
There’s thousands of missing people, and hundreds of unidentified bodies, in the UK alone.
Yeah, he’s perfectly able to write who is is, what happened, etc, they just haven’t found a pen yet.
This all helps identify him for certain once they have a country and name for the man. But without that I don’t think there are searchable biometric databases of photos or fingerprints that might find him by brute force unless he has a criminal record.
Also has there been any report other than the original as to how good his piano playing is, is he really of professional standard? If not then even that clue won’t help identify him too easily.
Very strange. I recall CBC Radio had a short bit on him on ‘As It Happens’ a few months back. It was remarked that a person with amnesia with ID for a ‘Philip Staufen’ having a British accent had turned up a few years back in Vancouver, but was at that time missing again. (The pictures don’t really match IMHO though).
This page from CNN has no shortage of possible IDs drawn from missing trained pianists (though the leading theory from that page appears to have been refuted).
Some of the later reports said he was nothing more than a good amateur.
From today’s BBC:
Dang – not a lot of answers, are there? I wonder if we’ll ever find out the real story (cue cheesy progression of ominous chords – played, with a talented-amateur level of success, on a grand piano).
From the BBC
It appears that the English public is easily impressed…
The press seems to have got the piano thing wrong, too (cite). It seems he acquired the ‘piano man’ nickname at the hospital by drawing a piano when given pen and paper. It seems the media heard “piano” and took it from there…
Radio 4 were this evening sceptical about the Mirror’s claims, as you would expect them to be. ‘An insider’ is hardly the most reliable of cites.