Others look at him quizzically.
Somewhat quizzically, he obeyed.
It was these early essays, carefully wrought, quizzically meditative in tone, and unusual in sensibility, that first drew attention to Stevenson as a writer.
"I started to think 'what is modern?'" he said, quizzically.
He asked: "So what do you do at rowing?" When I explained I was the chairman he looked at me quizzically and said: "Oh, so who's the chairman of the men's part of British rowing, then?" There's plenty of evidence that mixed-gender boards perform better, as women bring a different set of experiences and skills.
"He didn't say anything, there was a split second where neither of us said anything and then suddenly he put his arms out and put his hands on my breasts and then quizzically put his head to the side as if he was judging".
Now, I push through an open door at his agent's eerily silent offices, wander into a seemingly deserted room – and find him standing alone, near a shelf of books by another quizzically subversive spellbinder, and one of his true heroes: Italo Calvino.
Now, as I swung my legs over the side of the Zodiac on to terra firma, I was in danger of breaking rule No 1: a few metres away stood an adult gentoo, head cocked to the side, looking at me quizzically.
They can be location specific, as with Bartók's quizzically graceful "Hungarian Folksongs from the Csík District" and Rachmaninov's "Prelude in D minor", one of the last pieces written prior to his exile; or more sentimental – the wistful homesickness of Chopin's "Mazurka in F sharp minor", and Kurt Weill's "Lost in the Stars", saturated with yearning.
But this is Feis, and after 10 hours of waiting in the Never-ending Beer & Toilet Queues, the crowd wanted desperately to sing along, as they had to Christy Moore, rather than to have to turn to each other quizzically before realising at the beginning of each song that, yes, this is "All Along the Watchtower".
She regarded it quizzically: "That's a really raggedy old-looking placenta," she said.
