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I’m liking cretin66’s historical clues. Rather than create individual threads I thought we could have one for all such discussions. It’s interesting to see how setting has changed over the years.

Ximenes 864 from Aug 1965...
Round, round, round a trio of the pops (8)

Good idea for the single thread - I'll take that on board. And it's quite encouraging to see you have older chestnuts than me!

So this Ximenes, do we have any of the letters already?

I know the answer, it rather depends on a rare word for trio which I don’t think is in use much now. After that it’s perfectly fair. Pop is probably a little old fashioned but still used. I’ll leave it out there in case others want to try it...

This clue wasn't written by Ximenes - it was Geoffrey Arnott's Very Highly Commended entry for Ximenes clue writing competition 864.

Colin Dexter's entry for the same comp was "Pa-pa's pa-pa-pa".

...sorry, actually "Pa-pa's pa-pa-pa?" (the question mark is definitely necessary!)

Thanks Spoffy, great clue, I looked up Colin Dexter on &lit, he was a prolific clue writer for more than 55 years it seems

...as far as I am concerned, in his prime he was the best single-clue writer in the business. Perhaps the last of his classic Ximenes/Azed competition clues was this one from 2003:

Item gran arranged family slides in? (5,7)

Wow, that’s off the scale

I've just looked up these two Colin Dexters and am mightily impressed!