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Thanks for the tip Kitsune. I phoned them today and was offered £6.50 per month (though I don’t think there is any restriction on access to all Times content). Even so, that’s inflation for you

Kitsune, as regards your last paragraph, do you want to start a new thread headed Times Crossword Subscription then 'copy and paste' this paragraph there as I think it will be of interest to many of our members.

At present is buried deep in the Listener thread, some users will have finished the crossword and might not see your post. Others might have given up way back and are not following the thread.

Hi Acornz yes I believe I understand your point but even so I can't get the intervals to land on the final square in the grid. Should I be able to do this? And is the final word in the instruction anagramatised?

Mullingar, I think your query is answered by posts #65 and #77

That's a good idea, Norah, and I have done as you suggest. It's not entirely clear to me how the Times pricing algorithm works but hopefully others will be able to find a competitively priced option that works for them!

^^

Rather a slog this week, definitely not a favourite, but got there in the end. Thanks to people here, not for any specific hints but more for a general sense that it could be done if I persevered.
I'm pretty unhappy with the way the "bcde" stage of the end-game was described. I identified the clues in question, then read and re-read that bit of preamble and it doesn't - in my view - express what is actually required. In fact, it expresses the precise reverse - I spent a goodly length of time in an Eric Morecambe-like state, having the right letters in the wrong order, hence putting the wrong numbers into the right calculation, whilst racking my brain as to what value of "a" could possibly produce a real word!

I also spent ages with not only bcde in the wrong order, but the wrong value of a, due to faulty maths. However now I’m finished I grudgingly concede the instructions are clear: “..each has passed its definition” - note the use of past tense: the definition has already been passed. You need to find the clue that it came from.

Anyway, not that it matters for the final grid, but I never did figure out 33ac “purely intellectual announcement’s English is ahead of its time”. Any help?

If you move the 'e' of your answer away from its 't' and put it back where it came from you'd have the 'announement'.