Here's the new hidden text...

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LONDON: A British hospital has asked the public for help in determining the identity of a distressed man who has not uttered a word since being found on a beach over a month ago and who turns out to be a piano virtuoso.

Officials at the Medway Maritime Hospital said the man has not spoken since being found soaking wet on the beach of the southeastern Kent coastal town of Sheerness dressed in a chic black suit and tie.

After failing to elicit any details from the patient, who has shown signs of being nervous around strangers, hospital employees gave him pen and paper hoping he would write his name, but instead he drew a detailed sketch of a grand piano.

"When we took him to the chapel piano it really was amazing... he played for several hours, non-stop," said Michael Camp, one of the social workers at the hospital.

"I am not knowledgeable about classical music but I could tell he was pretty good," said Camp, who is based at the accident and emergency unit at Medway.

The hospital's staff have taken to helping the man, quickly nicknamed "the piano man", to compose as efforts continue to determine his identity.

A spokeswoman for the West Kent National Health Service Trust would not confirm reports that he has played sections of Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky, though she said he had staged a "beautiful" performance.

"There was nobody he was with skilled enough to recognise the music, they just knew it was classical music and played very well," the spokeswoman said. "He's not talking at all."

Mystery Piano Man may be Toronto's Mr Nobody
By Katharine Barney And Oliver Finegold, Evening Standard
19 May 2005

The hunt for the "Piano Man" has moved to Canada after the latest trail ran cold.

Police are trying to find out if the prodigy found wandering on a Kent beach - and still unable to speak - is a man dubbed Mr Nobody in Toronto.

The man, who now calls himself Sywald Skeid, walked into a hospital in Toronto in November 1999 with a broken nose and bloody face after apparently being attacked. He had no wallet and, in a slight Yorkshire accent, he said he had no idea who he was. Doctors diagnosed amnesia.

There are striking similarities between him and the man found on 7 April on the Isle of Sheppey. The two are the same age, with dyed blonde hair. All labels had been torn from their clothes and both had lost their memory.

Their noses are different shapes but Canadian police have confirmed that Mr Skeid had surgery to alter his.

Mr Skeid's attempts to apply for a British and Canadian passports have failed and with no identity he cannot work.

Freed from prison last year after serving a sentence for immigration offences, he was last known to be living in Victoria, British Columbia.

His wife is believed to be in Portugal, the country of her birth, to secure a visa for him.

Detective Stephen Bone of Toronto police said he was suspicious of Mr Skeid's motives.

"I believed he deceived me in 1999 and continues to deceive authorities."

Mr Skeid first adopted the name Philip Staufen and has also used the name Keith Ryan. In 2001, a London publisher claimed he was the spitting image of Georges Lecuit, a gay porn model. But the real Mr Lecuit had his French passport stolen in August 1998.

In Britain, police continue to be inundated with calls from people claiming they know the identity of "Piano Man".

A Polish mime artist said he was "99 per cent sure" the man was Steven Villa Masson, a pianist with whom he had worked in Nice. But Masson, 24, was tracked down.

Social worker Michael Camp, who has been looking after "Piano Man", said: "I would love to know who he is."

LONDON: A smartly dressed man found wandering in a soaking wet suit near an English beach has baffled police and care workers for more than a month after he refused to say a word and then gave a virtuoso piano performance.

The man, wearing a formal black suit and tie, was spotted by police in Kent on April 8 and taken to a psychiatric unit where it proved impossible to identify him because he stayed silent.

It was only after he was given a pen and paper that carers were given an intriguing clue to his possible background when he drew an intricate picture of a grand piano.

He was taken to the hospital's chapel where he played classical music on the piano for hours.

However, despite his picture being posted on the National Missing Persons Helpline's (NMPH) Web site, no one has come forward to identify him.

"Very little is known about him as he has not been speaking with staff at the hospital where he is being cared for, but he has a talent for playing classical piano," an NMPH spokesman said in a statement.

Michael Camp, a rapid response social worker who had dealings with the man while he was in Gillingham, expressed reservations about the move, saying: "When he plays the piano his demeanour is completely different. He is extremely relaxed and completely oblivious to people around him. He is completely immersed in the music and the piano."

Newspapers said members of the public had contacted authorities to say they may have seen the man giving concert performances around Europe.

The Daily Telegraph said the man, in his 20s or 30s, is believed to be English and may have suffered a mental breakdown.

But some other people suggested he could be a talented young Swedish pianist who divides his time between Scandinavia and the United Kingdom and plays the Wigmore Hall in London next month.

One person wondered if he was the depressive musician from the north-west of England whom she knew in the 80s, while another seemed to remember him as a student from a college in Canterbury.

The authorities were deluged by calls from people on Monday who believed they might have a clue to the identity of the "piano man."

By Monday night staff at the National Missing Persons' hotline were sifting through hundreds of calls hoping to identify the man.

Someone flagged up a close physical similarity between the "piano man" and a young musician called Martin Sturefalt who has bases in Stockholm and London. The lead seemed particularly promising as the stranger had pointed to a picture of a Swedish flag when shown an atlas.

However, Sturefalt was found to be in good spirits though a little bemused when tracked down to his Stockholm flat. "It is very sad," he said. "I have tried to think who it could be but really cannot imagine."
The story of this mysterious "piano man" echoes the 1996 Oscar-winning film "Shine," in which an Australian pianist named David Helfgott overcame a nervous breakdown to return to performing.
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Wow, that story seriously kicks ass. I think that's better fly paper for aklives.com

hey y'all, long time no see.

i think claire's sudden reappearance and simulataneous appearance of new 'hidden' text on aklives after is yet another indication that claire and enrique are the same entity. or is there even a shred of doubt about that? (i've been out of the loop.) and why the **** do i care anyway????

smiley face.