He was no longer a pariah, but an eccentric partner.

In 1968 he played the part of an eccentric artist in the musical Darling of the Day opposite Patricia Routledge.

And what about the Third Way? In the aftermath of the collapse of communism, Chávez s mix of anti Americanism and state activism seemed merely eccentric.

On the other hand, two people are more likely to be influential than one person as they are less likely to be seen as strange or eccentric.

Nathan Myhrvold talks about a few of his latest fascinations animal photography, archeology, BBQ and generally being an eccentric genius multimillionaire. Listen for wild stories from the edge of the animal world.

In the aftermath of the collapse of communism, Chávez s mix of anti Americanism and state activism seemed merely eccentric. There could be no alternative to free markets and the neoliberal Washington Consensus or so it appeared.

But many Indians are firm believers, as the increasingly eccentric spellings of film titles and movie stars names confirm. One of India s finest actors, Irfan Khan, suddenly re baptized himself Irrfan, a change that many swear prefigured the transformation of his career.

While some Tea Partiers may be racist or focused on eccentric themes such as the validity of Barack Obama s birth certificate far more of them, those who were part of the original grass roots effort, are focused on issues that have merit.

This assumption is not so far fetched. Murdering more than 60 innocent young people at a summer camp with an assault rifle, after bombing a chunk of central Oslo, is, to put it mildly, morally eccentric something most sane people would never dream of doing.

Dambudzo Marechera's Facebook page celebrates the life and times of one of the most eccentric figures in African literature. Marechera was a Zimbabwean writer and poet who died at the age of 35 in 1987 after leading a life that he described as an attempt to make myself a skeleton in my own cupboard.