The Writers' Circle

There has never been any colonisation of Janvia by a foreign power. Mainly because, it's such, a ghastly, inhospitable place that nobody ever wanted it. That's not to say that it's an ugly country. Far from it. There are rivers and lakes, and gently rolling hills. If you saw a post-card of the place, you might truthfully say that it looked quite pretty. The problem is, that by a freak of geology, Janvia is subject to a constant east-west wind that never subsides below gale force. This makes life fairly restrictive, in that the eating of soup or ice cream in the open air is nigh on impossible.

If you were to take out the large encyclopedia that your aunt gave you for your birthday a few years ago, and looked up the description on Janvia, it would read something like this:
JANVIA: Unalined independant democracy
               Pop: 1.6 Million
               Resources: Arable farming
               Exports: Potatoes, turnips, beetroot, kites.
If you looked in the super giant encyclopedia in the library, you could also learn that Janvia had the lowest number of tumble driers per head of population, and the greatest expenditure per head of population on roof tiles.

The Janvians themselves are proud of their homeland. They write songs and poems about the rivers and hills and the trees that grow from the ground at 45 degrees. 
It is a relatively young country. The land has always been there of course, but the border lines had not been drawn onto maps until the previous century.
 A flag had been unveiled at the same time as the country's birth. It was a blue rectangle, with a picture of a Bogo bird in the centre. An animal not found anywhere else.
An interesting thing to note about the Bogo bird, is that it has very powerful legs. The reason for this is that, although it can fly great distances at high speed from east to west, the wind is so strong that it normally has to walk back home.
When it was realised that the country's 100th birthday was approaching, the politicians wanted to do something to mark the occasion. They wanted to do something big. Something impressive. Something that would show the world that Janvia was at the cutting edge. Something to bring the tourists in. 
It had to be a monumental structure of some sort. Obviously it could not be a sky scraper or a bridge. It had to be something else. A competition was held in the newspapers to find a suitably impressive, monumental, tourist inducing thing to build.
The winning entry was a suggestion to build the world's biggest windmill. This would have two distinct benefits. Firstly it would provide free electricity to the people of Janvia, and secondly it would give tourists something to look at. They would be able to say on their return home "We may have spent our vacation in a ghastly, unpleasant, inhospitable, draughty dump, but hey! wasn't that some windmill"

Due to its lack of oil wells, gold mines, off shore banking etc. Janvia didn't have the capitol available to build the windmill from its own resources and had to go to the bank for a loan. The money would be paid back by keeping the electricity bills at the same level as before, and the accountants figured that after 23 years the people of Janvia would be in receipt of free electricity. Pretty cool eh!
Once the money was in place, work on the worlds biggest windmill began.

Such a big building needed to be of exceptional strength to withstand the constant winds, and so the windmill was built using ton after ton of reinforced  concrete.
As well as being impressively strong, it was also exceptionally high, and could be seen for a distance of more than 20 miles. The Janvians, with their vision and hard work had created something of which they could be justifiably proud.
At the unveiling ceremony, the chocks were knocked away from the massive sails, and the windmill churned into life. The sails rotating faster and faster as the wind turned them. Electricity flowed, and the people partied into the night in celebration.

People got used to the windmill always being in the background. It became part of the scenery. It also gave a slight boost to the tourist industry. The old brochure that the tourist office had previously issued used to just say: COME TO BEAUTIFUL WIND SWEPT JANVIA but now it said: COME TO BEAUTIFUL WIND SWEPT JANVIA AND GAZE IN WONDER AT OUR WINDMILL; After a while Mrs. Stuckheimer, who ran the guest house opposite was able to trade her old car in for a new one.

The problems began 22 years and 6 Months after the windmill had first started to operate. After so much time the bearings had worn, and the windmill had started to issue a low screeching noise. In the weeks that followed, the noise became louder and louder, until people were unable to sleep for it. What was worse, was that the few tourists that visited, normally left within the first hour.
The windmill would have to be closed down, while repairs were made.
Unfortunately, when the windmill had been built, although much thought had gone into the structure of the building, very little thought had been given to the machinery that was installed inside. It was discovered that the windmill did not have an integrated braking system. The country's finest engineers stood around and scratched their heads, trying to think of a way to stop the sails turning, while all the time, the screeching from the thing was getting worse and worse. They tried putting sticks in between the sails, but they would be snatched from their hands and tossed away by the force of the machine. They then tried bigger sticks, and finally telegraph poles, but nothing worked. The only thing that they could suggest was to demolish the whole thing with explosives. This would mean the end of the free electricity that people were expecting in a few months time, but at least the noise would stop and the tourists would stay. The government reluctantly agreed to this solution. At least with the blowing up of such a large building, they could expect tourist from all over the world to come and see it happen.

There was only one pyrotechnical engineer in Janvia. His name was Joe Gladys. He normally drove a tractor on a farm, and just dabbled with explosives at the week-end (.Firework displays are not very popular in a place where after you have sent a rocket into the sky, it explodes 10 miles down wind). But as there was only one man, he got the job to demolish the windmill. Explosives were sourced, and books were consulted on the amount of explosive to use. After a week, the windmill was primed for demolition. There would be a further one week delay while television cameras were set up, politicians rehearsed their speeches and the final few tourists arrived to witness the explosion. During this time the politicians had worried that if the windmill was not destroyed at the first attempt, the country would be made to look foolish, and had ordered that an extra 10% of plastic explosive be added. Joe Gladys also wanted his biggest job to date to be a success, and added another 10% himself, just to be on the safe side.

A large crowd of tourists, locals, politicians and TV crews all gathered outside of Mrs. Stuckhiemers guest house to witness the big moment. Thus it was that at 2 P.M. on a glorious Saturday afternoon, marred only by a howling gale and a screeching windmill, the igniter button was pressed.
Had Joe not neglected to put a decimal point in his calculations on the amount of explosive to use, and packed just 2 Tons of explosive into the building, rather than the 24 tons that actually got used, the resulting explosion would not have been as spectacular as that witnessed on that fateful Saturday afternoon. The blast that took place not only demolished the windmill, it also broke every window for a radius of five miles, and could be heard 160 miles away. Mrs. Stuckhiemer was so upset, that she retired to the toilet at the bottom of her garden, and when she pulled the chain, the ceiling fell in on top of her.

Janvia is still a beautiful country. Although there's not much to look at apart from a demolished windmill. The lights don't work, as there is no electricity, and ordering a drink or a meal is difficult as every-one is deaf. But if you are looking for somewhere to fly your kite, then Janvia's the place.