Mindbender

A: "I had a look at that bit of land," said John. "It's an awkward shape, a triangle, but I didn't check the measurements."

"I don't have them exactly myself," Ken replied. "All I know is that the longest and the shortest sides are perfect squares in metres, whole numbers of course. There's 44 metres between them, and then the middle side is 16 metres longer than the shortest."

John nodded. "Well, I suppose we could work it out from that. I did notice the dead elm in the middle is the same distance from each side."

What was the distance?

B: "How old is John?" Susan asked.

"John's too young for you," replied Mary. "Figure it out yourself. If you add together the two figures of his age you get half what his age was a year ago."

What do you make of it?

Find as many words as possible using the letters in the grid. Each word must use the central letter and at least 3 others, and letters may be used only once. You cannot use plurals, foreign words or proper nouns, but verb forms ending in ‘s’ are permitted. There is one 9-letter word to be found.

HOW YOU RATE

9 Good; 12 Very Good; 15 Excellent. SATURDAY’S SOLUTIONS STONINESS inset, nest, nests, nets, noise, nose, noses, notes, onset, sent, session, sets, sine, sins, site, sites, sits, snot, sonnet, stein, stone, stones, tennis, tension, ties, tins, tones, toss, tosses.

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