The Age Cryptic by RM #20,596

Last week was a rough week. We get them. I haven't finished Friday's DA but it's in my file and I will finish at some point. I'll keep on trucking in the meantime and get on with today's RM.

A whole bunch of homophones in this puzzle - good practice!  Some worked better than others but accents are an issue for me. 6A worked fine enough with my Boston accent but 3D, which was my last clue in, is not said the same at all - here I think my accent is at fault. Just watch some Family Guy, you'll understand. Here's the pic:

Only a couple queries. For 1D which answer do we want? Since the changing letter is not link to another clue, both will fit the space. Which is the definition - SWEETSHOP or SWEATSHOP? I left SWEATSHOP but don't really know which is the correct answer.

17D - Took the trouble to get the alternative bed cover (8)

I guess that "Took the trouble" is the definition and I think we take the THE and BED from the clue and that "alternative" = OR but how do we know to get THE into OR? I can see "BED cover" has bed being split around everything with "cover" as a container signpost. I just think I'm missing something.

I don't if my way of making 25D work is right but it works for me. I also do not know if any of these answers are incorrect so apologies if there is an error. I can't cheat on my daughter's iPad until she's home from school.

I have printed out the bonus puzzle @LRxword shared on Twitter this morning (I may wait for the PDF version, my printout is teenie-weenie) and will have a crack later on. Who can a resist a puzzle with the tag "It's probably too quirky for the newspaper." Bring on the quirk!

Bring on the end of the day and a Long Island Iced Tea please. Cheers.