what does this picture(rebus) riddle means ?

One absent-minded ancient philosopher forgot to wind up his only clock in the house. He had no radio, TV, telephone, internet, or any other means for telling time. So he travelled on foot to his friend's place a few miles down the straight desert road. He stayed at his friend's house for the night and when he came back home, he knew how to set his clock. How did he know?

_ _ _ IE _ _
_ _ _ IE _
_ _ IE _ _
_ _ IE _
_ _ _ _ IE

Like you see, some letters have gone missing from these words that contain the IE pair at some or the other place. The letters that will be used to fill the blanks are given below. Use them and form meaningful words. Can you do that?

A, C, D, F, H, K, L, M, N, N, O, R, R, S, S, S, T, T, Y and Y.

If we change the South-East direction into North and North-East into West and all others similarly.
Can you find out which direction will be in the place of South-West direction?

In a fruit store, there was a unique weighing machine that was made to weigh only cherries and strawberries as they were priced the same.

Other fruits like watermelons or mango had different machines as they were expensive.

A man successfully buys watermelons at the price of cherries. How?

By using 'because' continuously three times, can you make an English statement ?

What demands an answer, but asks no questions

'Ferrari driver' easily beats the 'force driver' in a two-car race. How did Indian newspapers truthfully report so to look as a 'force drive' had outdone the 'Ferrari driver'? Think!!!

Can you place six X (crosses) in below board without making three in a row in any way ?

Why despite killing dozens of people Charley and Wilma were not punished?