Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1400 – 7th September. The uncertainty principle

16 comments on “Times Cryptic Jumbo No 1400 – 7th September. The uncertainty principle”

1. It just now came to me: in a NY event (the New York marathon).
   1. Aha! – thanks Kevin. I’ve added your explanation above
2. As usual in a Jumbo, a couple of DNKs: WHISTLE, DAVE (I still don’t understand), HOE INTO, THE GOOD LIFE, and ‘fen’. And as is all too common with me, I missed the hidden in 41ac and simply biffed. (That makes 3 hiddens: 41ac, 3d, 27d; can they do that?) LOI 38ac. I liked TAX-FREE & OXYGEN, but COD to CLEAVE.

   Edited at 2019-09-21 06:19 am (UTC)

   1. Dave is a free-to-air TV channel in the UK. “The home of witty banter”, it has a timeshift version called, inevitably, Dave ja vu.
      1. Thanks.
3. I see Kevin has already explained 20A. As for 24D I parsed it as you did, Kitty, although uncertain = doubt seems a bit dodgy. In 49A a glissando is made by running a finger across a range of keys on the piano, in this case starting on an A and running up (or down) to a B somewhere further up (or down) the keyboard, so yes it’s just a cryptic definition.

   Edited at 2019-09-21 07:27 am (UTC)

   1. Hardly seemed cryptic to me; the only wordplay I saw was that ‘glissandi’ being a plural noun, ‘moves’ needs to be a noun for the definition, but looks like a verb.
   2. I could see how it works as a cryptic(ish) definition, but I’m always wary of missing clever &lits – not only missing them, but dis-missing them as only a weak cd. It’s good to have reassurance.
4. I took about 40 minutes for this entertaining Jumbo. Like Kevin, I didn’t know that meaning of WHISTLE and HOE INTO and had to verify that many fens make a Yuan. I have several clues with a tick against them on my paper copy. I liked CADAVER, the cunning hidden at 41A, GEIGER COUNTER, SIDES, TWENTY-ONE, DESTROY and my COD, OXYGEN. I would have included CLEAVE but I think I’ve seen that elsewhere recently. Thanks Kitty and setter.

   Edited at 2019-09-21 08:01 am (UTC)

5. I had to confirm the Aussie HOE INTO, once I’d derived it, but knew Whistle and flute for suit. I saw GLISSANDI as a cryptic definition too. Didn’t know ORGANON, but the wordplay was clear. I enjoyed this puzzle, which took me 55:23, which is just on the easy side of average for me. Thanks setter and Kitty.
   1. I associate it with Francis Bacon’s ‘New Organon’, which has one of my favorite Bacon-bits:
      The men of experiment are like the ant, they only collect and use; the reasoners resemble spiders, who make cobwebs out of their own substance. But the bee takes a middle course: it gathers its material from the flowers of the garden and of the field, but transforms and digests it by a power of its own.
      1. *like*
         1. I imagine his best-known quote is, “What is truth, asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.”
6. I wish I had remembered a word and piece of GK that I had to look up when solving this as it would have given me an answer in today’s main puzzle, roughly the reverse of the same clue. Unfortunately both had already fallen out of memory so I had to cheat all over again.

   Edited at 2019-09-21 01:11 pm (UTC)

7. 24d makes an adjective have doubts, which is damn devious in my book. I really think that’s what it is! Thoughts?

   A very smile-worthy Jummbo this one, thanks setter, and thanks Kitty for a really nice blog.

8. The two words “fey” and “doubt” are just two words.. they don’t have to be treated as a phrase

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