Finding Eriksson's cryptic crossword quite the challenge? You've come to the right place. Here are some hints to help you on your way:
HINTS:
1 ACROSS: Weird Sir Alan can't take Henry V as an example
- With this clue our indicator is 'weird' and it is an anagram indicator - we are going to have to mix up the letters of some of what comes next to get to our answer
- Our definition is 'take Henry V as an example' - what word might describe Henry V which is also an anagram of the words which come before this?
ANSWER: LANCASTRIAN
9 ACROSS: Father Rory covers up blunder
- Here, our definition is 'blunder', so our answer will be another word which means the same
- 'Covers up' is serving as an indicator in this context and suggests that a word is hidden within the fodder - what word meaning blunder might be hiding inside 'father Rory'?
ANSWER: ERROR
10 ACROSS: Trunk of tree's heading periodically for Rostov
- Some selection indicators here - 'heading' might point towards the first letter of a word and 'periodically' might direct us to look at every other letter of what follows
- We might look to 'trunk' for a definition here
ANSWER: TORSO
11 ACROSS: Pinch and restrain revolutionary
- Another word for 'pinch...'
ANSWER: NIP
12 ACROSS: Broken, lost Henry is a slow mover
- 'Broken' is an anagram indicator
- 'Slow mover' is our definition
ANSWER: SLOTH
13 ACROSS: Inaction as interstate freewheeling train gains energy
- 'Inaction' is the definition
- 'Freewheeling' suggests a bit of anagramming - and perhaps we'll 'gain' a few letters too
ANSWER: INERTIA
14 ACROSS: State of violence: a lunatic captures leader of Aberystwyth University
- 'Leader' looks like we're taking some leading letters once again...
- I wonder if 'state' could mean something other than it seems to in this context... maybe even a country...
ANSWER: VANUATU
16 ACROSS: After two Novembers in Europe, I found boredom
- The definition for this one is 'boredom'
- Cryptic crosswords often make use of the NATO phonetic alphabet, and this is no exception. November is the NATO phonetic designator for N, how might we combine this information with Europe - or EU, say - to get to our definition in a way which makes sense with the rest of the clue?
ANSWER: ENNUI
18 ACROSS: Hill of soft feathers
- Could we be looking at a double definition here? What word could be a 'hill' and might also refer to 'soft feathers'?
ANSWER: DOWN
19 ACROSS: Pen explosion firstly causes eye injury
- Did you spot my very subtle hinting at this one in the print? Still stuck?
ANSWER: STYE
20 ACROSS: Sort of colander?
- The question mark here suggests that this definition requires a bit of thinking
ANSWER: SIEVE
22 ACROSS: Version of a tirade about me: beyond violent
- The definition here is 'version of'
- We're looking a substitution for 'a tirade' to go around a substitution for 'me', all of which comes after (beyond) 'v' for 'violent'
ANSWER: VARIANT
25 ACROSS: Corrupt people egg religious leader
- 'Corrupt' is an anagram indicator
- 'Religious leader' is our definition
ANSWER: POPE LEO
27 ACROSS: Endures finals
- Very short clue this one, makes me think it might be a double definition...
- What word would mean the same as 'endures' and 'finals'?
ANSWER: LASTS
28 ACROSS: Leader of Greenland's 'silver silence'
- Cryptic crosswords often substitute elements with their chemical formulae; I wonder if that's happening here...
- 'Leader' sounds like a selection indicator to me, telling me I need only the first (leading) letter of Greenland... perhaps to make something we'd define as 'silence...'
ANSWER: GAG
29 & 30 ACROSS: "Call over hero!" announced drummer
- We're looking for a 'drummer' here folks, know any famous ones?
- Perhaps whose name starts with another word for call?
ANSWER: RINGO STARR
31 ACROSS: Mental effect of ice gust carrying drizzle and a hint of fog
- This time, the definition is 'mental effect of ice'
- The wordplay here is clever indeed, we're looking for a word which can be substituted for (has the same or similar meaning to) 'gust' and inside that we're placing a word which can be substituted for 'drizzle' and a bit of the word 'fog'
- ANSWER: BRAINFREEZE ('gust' becomes 'breeze', 'drizzle' becomes 'rain' and we place after that our 'f' from 'fog')
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1 DOWN: State of liquid at Evian uncovered
- I'm seeing 'state' here... might our answer be the name of a country?
- Uncovered seems to suggest I'm taking the first and last letter away from 'Evian' - I wonder what my missing country which contains the letters 'via' is?
ANSWER: LATVIA
2 DOWN: Pluck head of Ribena to infiltrate leaderless 7-up
- Definition: 'pluck' (though not necessarily the verb...)
- Leaderless seven suggests we might be losing its initial letter; I wonder if the head of a different word might work its way in instead...
ANSWER: NERVE
3 DOWN: Initially all beam, including St Paul, for example
- What might we class 'St Paul', for example, as?
ANSWER: APOSTLE
4 DOWN: A bit of heat on Gandhi's country
- We're looking for a country here, but not necessarily the one you would first associate with Gandhi (Gandhi might be involved in the wordplay, leaving the definition as just 'country' and not 'Gandhi's country', as you may have been duped into assuming)
- 'A bit of' is a hidden word indicator - our answer is somewhere inside the phrase 'heat on Gandhi's'
ANSWER: TONGA
5 DOWN: Ad lib setters show about Indians
- 'Ad lib' is the definition
- 'about' suggests that one word is being placed around another
ANSWER: IMPROVISE
6 DOWN: Columnist is sequestered in Brunel's onion
- This one looks familiar from the print!
ANSWER: NELSON
7 DOWN: Jason's lads deliver canned tuna to shop
- Our definition here is 'Jason's lads', Jason and the whom I wonder...
- 'canned' is an anagram indicator, so our answer includes a mishmash of the letters from tuna and a shop...
ANSWER: ARGONAUTS
8 DOWN: Ferdinand, for one, hacked our broadcast with no oxygen
- We're looking for something which matches the definition 'Ferdinand, for one'.. - perhaps of the famous Franz variety
ANSWER: ARCHDUKE
15 DOWN: Fencer's strange remark is Manx essentially
- Our wordplay leads us to another word for 'fencer' this time
ANSWER: SWORDSMAN
17 DOWN: Gin a last resort to protect love and sentimentality
- Perhaps resort is not how it appears, perhaps we need to resort some of what comes before, like an anagram...
- Perhaps our definition is related to 'sentimentality'
ANSWER: NOSTALGIA
18 DOWN: Satanic, abominable, vile dish
- 'Satanic' is the definition this time
- Not another anagram, is it? 'Abominable' just might be telling us to anagram what comes next...
ANSWER: DEVILISH
21 DOWN: One who rules as per Rome's constituents
- We're looking for a word which meets the definition 'one who rules'
- Surely you can pre-empt me this time? That's right, we're anagramming 'per Rome'
ANSWER: EMPEROR
23 DOWN: Soak up a big cry about Romeo?
- Fans of the NATO phonetic alphabet rejoice; we've got an R here that seems like it's going to be engulfed by a word which means 'big cry'
- 'Soak up' is our definition
ANSWER: ABSORB (our 'big cry' being 'sob')
24 DOWN: Blue moon almost entirely concealing red sun? First sign of eclipse!
- This looks like tricky wordplay here, we've got 'moon' in our answer in almost its entirety, 'red sun' (or an abbreviation of that perhaps?), and the first sign of 'eclipse'
- The definition, in this instance, is 'blue'
ANSWER: MOROSE
25 DOWN: Pan's endless age is idolatrous
- The definition is 'idolatrous'
- What might match this definition and include 'pan' and also 'age' without its 'end' letter?
ANSWER: PAGAN
26 DOWN: Thrust broken leg around sawn-off gun
- 'Thrust' is our definition
- Broken indicators that we're using the letters from leg in a way which splits them apart. Sawn-off gun suggests 'gun' might be missing something (maybe a letter!) in the answer
ANSWER: LUNGE
Featured Image: Epigram / Ossian Watt-Smith
