Jumbo Time

Times Cryptic Jumbo 1522 - 16th October

I found this an entertaining Jumbo of about average diffculty; (almost) nothing to frighten the horses and a number of clues that had me smiling. I was finished all bar 1 in about 37 minutes, but then got stuck on 47D, where I knew neither of the two definitions and after another 7 fruitless minutes staring perplexedly at it eventually had to look for help. I don't know if it was just me, but there seemed to be a lot of letter deletion clues. Maybe that's what 1A was trying to tell us! Ticks went on my copy for several clues, and there were a few where I enjoyed teasing out the wordplay (e.g.17D) or I word I didn't know (e.g. 42D), but my favourite was 49A. Thank-you setter. How did everyone else get on?

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