[Bryson]

Would you mind trying a little experiment with me?

Please read either the news story in the first spoiler tag below or look at the picture in the second spoiler tag.

Hide that, and then look at the the other one. Make sure you only look at one at a time.

Finally, hide that, then answer the question in the third spoiler tag without looking at the story or the picture.

Story:

Originally Posted by Timesonline Penny and John Adie looked on a little nervously as removal men lowered a £100,000 Steinway concert grand from the back of a lorry yesterday. The last time a piano was delivered to their Exmoor home in preparation for a music festival, it tumbled 14ft down a flight of granite steps, landing in pieces at the bottom. The demise of the piano, bought at auction in London for £26,000 a few days earlier, made news around the world. Yesterday the piano manufacturer Steinway came to the rescue with a temporary replacement while the Adies’ piano, a 9ft-long Bösendorfer, awaits the verdict of an insurance loss adjuster. The Adies run the Two Moors music festival from their home on Exmoor and the Bösendorfer was due to take centre stage until it was dropped by G&R, a specialist piano removals firm. Steinway & Sons chose a different removal firm to deliver their two-year-old loan piano. Three workers from Piano Logistics, based in West London, managed to deliver the instrument without a scratch.

Picture:

Question:

How far did the Piano fall, roughly?

Answers (and comments) in spoiler tags, stating which one you looked at first.

Ta

Bonus round:

Who manufactured the piano originally?

[Moogs]

Recalled the answer as being "14 steps", not feet... read the story first. Oddly though when I looked at the picture my first reaction was "it looks like it fell off the truck and stopped, rather than sliding / tumbling down a bunch of steps.

[turtle]

I looked at the second spoiler (pic of piano on its top). I'm not sure how far it fell, the image makes it look only like it toppled over, but the people standing around make it look like 10 ft or more.

[billybobsky]

It fell 14 feet and was made by Bosendorfer. I read the story first.

[jdcfsu]

I read the story first. The answer to the bonus question is Borsendorfer (or however it's spelled). But the answer to the first question baffles me. I thought I had read the piano fell down some stairs but the picture showed what I assume is a piano in a field or on the side of a road... there was no sign of a building. Rather odd.

[jondaapplegeek]

14ft?

[Mugge]

Well, perhaps they dragged it up there after the incident. And the house could be behind the camera. However, it could also be a stock photo that just happened to feature a smashed Bösendorfer piano.

I don't understand what the experiment is about, though.

[billybobsky]

the picture looks as if it was taken right after the initial fall --- it probably kept sliding down the stairs

[psmith2.0]

Well we know it couldn't be incompetence - or outright lying/distorting for effect - from news outlets. I mean, they're completely abov... Could just be an "after the fact" photo with the piano moved/slid further down a bit? Or the building just out of camera range? But yeah, the photo doesn't seem to match up to the story (or at least the mental impression I got from reading the story). That's kinda odd.

[zippy]

14 feet. I read the article first. Upon looking at the picture, it doesn't appear to be 14 feet, but then I remember it said 14 feet down some granite steps, so it's more of a lateral fall than a vertical one. and oops, I didn't notice the bonus question until after I read a couple of other posts. I wouldn't have been able to spell it correctly anyhow.

[Banana]

Read the story first. It seems that the story talks about two separate incidents, so there's really no way of telling whether the picture relate to the first one about 14 ft drop, or second, where no information is given about height of drop.

[BenP]

14 feet, I looked at the picture first. The article was very confusing WRT the manufacturer... I don't know anything about pianos but I assumed the B-something is a specific model of Steinway pianos.

[Bryson]

Thanks folks. Keep 'em coming.

For those who've participated so far:

The picture and the story are both genuine records of the same incident. The text is from Times Online, and the pic is from the BBC. What I'm doing here is exploiting some sloppy reporting by the Times Onine to test whether people will trust what they are told versus what they can see with their own eyes (as per the folk saying). Although the article says: it tumbled 14ft down a flight of granite steps, landing in pieces at the bottom. It's clear from the photo that the fall was considerably less than 14ft, (I'd estimate about 3-4 feet at most, from looking) that it didn't "tumble" but turned over only about 180 degrees and didn't go down a "flight of steps" It went down about 3 or 4 steps, and definitely isn't at the "bottom" of those steps, by a long margin . It also isn't in "pieces"* - while I don't doubt the damage is severe, it's not the bugs-bunny comedy piano smash suggested by the text article. The bonus question was an attempt to see if the headline billing given to Steinway (despite the fact the story wasn't really about a Steinway) would sway people. * = They remove the legs for transport anyway.

[psmith2.0]

Aha, so my little dig about incompetence/lying was a bit on track...how news outlets can say whatever and we'd never really know, and we just assume the story or accompanying photos are 100% gospel ("why would they ever not tell the truth or whole story?"). That's why I no longer really believe anyone about anything at anytime, for any reason.

[Moogs]

Originally Posted by Bryson Thanks folks. Keep 'em coming. For those who've participated so far: The picture and the story are both genuine records of the same incident. The text is from Times Online, and the pic is from the BBC. What I'm doing here is exploiting some sloppy reporting by the Times Onine to test whether people will trust what they are told versus what they can see with their own eyes (as per the folk saying). Although the article says: It's clear from the photo that the fall was considerably less than 14ft, (I'd estimate about 3-4 feet at most, from looking) that it didn't "tumble" but turned over only about 180 degrees and didn't go down a "flight of steps" It went down about 3 or 4 steps, and definitely isn't at the "bottom" of those steps, by a long margin . It also isn't in "pieces"* - while I don't doubt the damage is severe, it's not the bugs-bunny comedy piano smash suggested by the text article. Ok. Good... I haven't gone completely bat-shit insane then because I had the same exact reaction as above, when I looked at the picture.

[Bryson]

I genuinely found this a few weeks ago, on the street:

Now that's what I was expecting...

[Windowsrookie]

Clicking all these spoilers is getting annoying.

[ShadowOfGed]

I'd say about 12 feet in total; 8 feet high, figure roughly as long down that set of stairs. They did say the piano fell down a flight of stairs, right? Oh, I read the story first, picture second. The piano was a Bösendorfer, yes?