Are you a Swiftie - am great fan of that chirpy little bird !!

Chirping loud ! – is that a disturbance or most welcome – depends on your attitude !    know what is a ‘Swiftie’ – it is not associated to being swift !  ~  ‘Small is beautiful’ is today’s theme !

If in recession, how do you expect the Economy to swing back !  Several European cities have already reported a sharp rise in demand for hotel and short-term rental accommodation over the summer, when the Swift hurricane will arrive. In Edinburgh, Liverpool and Cardiff, rooms at the Travelodge chain around June dates have been sold out since August 2023, a month after tickets for the shows went on sale. In Paris, where fans anticipate   debut an updated version of the Eras show with songs from the new Tortured Poets Department album, 80% of hotels and apartments listed are already full up. In Warsaw on 2 August, only 9% of hotels listed on the same site are still available. Hang on, what is this about ?

Most sensible living beings, you would think, would abhor and shun living in Indian cities. Who needs the noise, traffic and polluting fumes, the weird emanations from cellphone towers, the fertiliser-laced food and (human) neighbours who are almost wholly unaware of your presence, let alone know your name? And yet, to one’s surprise there are so many different birds that come calling daily !!  - observed them, especially this little bird, which lands at one corner, before you could more your eye-lid jumps to another, to another and another .. ..   this bird is famous for its the ability to sew the edges of large leaves together to form a cone or container in which to build nests.  

Possibly one of the first English words that we (Tamil medium folks)  started using was Tailor .. .. .. there were so many tailor shops – on the compound of Sri Parthasarathi swami temple at Peyalwar koil street run by Subramani, a small 10 x 12 shop – there was– Jupiter Tailors at Big Street / Alangatha pillai St was much bigger ! – VIP tailors was a famous name – and in 1980s a well dressed bearded Cheenu stitched his pant for Rs.100/- - we spoke about that !! 

After learning the English word for the person who stitches clothes as Tailor, we developed doubt on whether it is ‘Taylor’ or ‘Tailor’ and one Prof told me that Taylor is a name; Tailor is a profession !  .. .. ?!? – perhaps some Spanish/ Latin  connection.  "Taylor" is a proper noun which is often translated as "Taylor", and "tailor" is a noun which is often translated as "el sastre".  A tailor helps make your clothes fit you better. The word tailor comes from the Latin taliare, meaning "to cut." A tailor is someone who cuts and adjusts your clothing to better fit. When you tailor a jacket, you have it taken in to better suit your physique. 

Read that  letter Y was at one time far more commonly used where we nowadays would use the letter I. The reason we now use I is because, in the course of the Nineteenth Century, scholarship about words improved dramatically, and scholars discovered that lots of these words they had been spelling with a Y came originally from Latin, which had really used an I; and which had only used Y for words of Greek origin. 

Though this post is intended to be one on Tailor Bird, it gives an opportunity to write something and post a photo of Taylor Swift.  The term Swiftie refers to a fan of musician Taylor Swift. It is commonly used as a self-identifying term by Swift fans and by others to refer to Swift fans. Calling someone a Swiftie often implies that they are a very passionate and loyal fan—as opposed to just a casual listener.

A post-pandemic appetite for live music events has fuelled huge worldwide interest in the American singer-songwriter’s Eras tour, which surpassed in $1bn sales in November to become the highest-grossing series of concerts in history.  The pop culture event of the summer will arrive in Europe next month, kicking off in Paris on 9 May and wrapping up in London on 20 August with 49 dates in between in Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Poland, Austria, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The unique nature of the tour’s ticketing system, which was tweaked after a number of hitches last year, means there will be a mass movement of travelling fans who will not only be Swiftie in affiliation but swift-like in their willingness to travel across the continent.

In expectation of intense demand, Ticketmaster introduced a pre-registration system that rewarded some early applicants with access codes to the ticket sale proper, via staggered windows for each city. Notionally designed to prioritise genuine fans over “scalpers” – people who buy and resell tickets for a quick profit – the pre-sales system also meant many fans registered for tickets in multiple destinations across Europe to increase their chances.

Down under, when India played Aussie in finals of ODI championship, Krish Srikkanth was brilliantly caught by a jumping Peter Taylor – Taylor who ? .. .. had read that the man  answered the car-phone, he  had just begun a 650km drive to visit family in Sydney. Their 18-year-old son Charlie was making his way in grade cricket as an offspinner for Northern District, where Peter had played. Peter grew up in Sydney. His family owned a car dealership, but, uninterested in selling cars, he studied agricultural science at the University of Sydney. He hoped one day to become a farmer. He had been an outstanding junior cricketer, at the same time as Allan Border, and when the new of his selection was made known to him – he expected it to be  Mark Taylor and asked ‘Taylor-who ?’. 

His final Test was against India, at the MCG in 1991. He was replaced by Shane Warne for the Sydney Test.  Taylor later  bought a wheat and cotton property outside Moree, which he still farms, and has since developed a cattle property at Inverell. For a while in the late 1990s he was an Australian selector.  

In serene atmosphere, you hear them loud .. . chirpy and in a trice, they fly away ! flirting between trees and shrubs … found hard to capture them on lens.   They make an intriguing quirk   Understand them to be ‘common tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius)’,  a songbird found across tropical Asia. Popular for its nest made of leaves "sewn" together and immortalized by Rudyard Kipling as Darzee in his Jungle Book.  The common tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius) is a songbird found across tropical Asia.   Although shy birds that are usually hidden within vegetation, their loud calls are familiar and give away their presence. They are distinctive in having a long upright tail, greenish upper body plumage and rust coloured forehead and crown.  

This morning was able to capture some clicks of this chirpy bird !!  Away from Mark Taylor, Ross Taylor, little known Peter Taylor, Sarah Taylor [the wicketkeeper batswoman, played for Sussex alongside men too]………….the local Tailor was the person who made and altered clothing for men and women…. while ‘women’s tailor’ still exist – the men’s tailors are fast vanishing in city.  

I am happy with the catch of Tailorbird featured here. . 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
14^th Apr 2024