Lancelot who had read modern languages at Oxford could remember the day when Ian Cuthbert had been the most promising talent in a Cambridge so full of promise that it had made everywhere else feel provincial Ians contemporaries had plotted to take over the British theatre and in a remarkably short time they had actually done so But their mental energy had seemed like indolence when you looked at Ian He had worn his overcoat like a cape and talked about what one very famous French writer had said as if he had been there to overhear it Yet for some reason the whole frostily coruscating galaxy of Ians creative intellect had remained locked in its closet While less gifted deviants came out and conquered Ian went further in At the height of his influence as a literary tastemaker he was already notoriously difficult to deal with Officially appointed by the relevant public agency to edit a comprehensive magazine of the arts he was like a general with a million tons of equipment pinned down on the beach by nothing except an excess of opportunity The magazine used up the budget for a dozen issues without appearing once Similarly his thricerenewed threeyear contract with one of the fashion magazines engendered little except legends about the size of his emolument which was increased from generosity to extravagance in an attempt to make him produce more and then from extravagance to munificence in an attempt to make him produce anything At the editorial working breakfasts  there were always at least two of the titled photographers present to capture the scene for posterity  Ian spat witty venom through clenched teeth and poured nitric acid on other peoples ideas Ten years later he could scarcely be depended upon to turn up for his own funeral Lancelot was on the verge of admitting to himself that A World History of the Short had been a mistake from its inception