On the clue itself at 6, the homophone only works for one of the two pronunciations of decade (as has been mentioned); some of my dictionaries indicate that they are perfect homophones, others say not quite – close enough, nonetheless, for the homophone to pass muster in a cryptic crossword, I think.

Thanks to sidey for the enlarging tip – I’ll give it a whirl myself.

I wonder if you are right, pennes: the fact that Bathurst is not the most obvious of place names to clue might suggest that there was a theme lurking in there? Perhaps Dac will drop in and let us know?

Nice to see you over here on this blog and to hear that you’ve had a crack at your first Indy puzzle. As I said earlier, this for me was a tough Dac, but generally his Wednesday puzzles are gettable and always smoothly clued. Phi on Friday is the other regular slot as a rule – always a pleasing crossword and usually within the reach of an improving solver.

Beyond that, there are some toughies too! But always a fair challenge and a chance to improve.

This is the first time that I have tried an Independent puzzle and found it quite hard-going. Is this a typical example of the difficulty of these puzzles? I also found the grid rather small on my computer; I tried CTRL SHIFT +, but this only worked once – is there some other way of enlarging the grid?

Once I had solved it, I wondered why I had such problems – but that is always the same with hindsight. I missed the revolutionary reversal in 22 (that makes two in one day!)