Disposable Everything

Author: Gareth Leaman

  • Oasis and the haters

    Oasis and the haters

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    by

    Gareth Leaman

    As you might expect from an industry fighting against its impending demise, the music press wastes no time when presented with a rare opportunity to shape popular discourse. And so, with the announcement of Oasis’s reunion came an anxious rush of well-worn opinions about the band’s work and its meaning within British culture. It began…

  • Substack

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    Gareth Leaman

    Hello. Just a quick note to say that you can also follow this blog on Substack, if you’d like to. This will still be the main version of this site, however. I don’t think I like Substack all that much, but others seem to.

  • ‘These troubled hills’: Idris Davies, poet of Gwent

    ‘These troubled hills’: Idris Davies, poet of Gwent

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    by

    Gareth Leaman

    Full essay published at Cwlwm

  • On the funding of Welsh magazines

    On the funding of Welsh magazines

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    by

    Gareth Leaman

    Statement in support of the Open Letter to the Welsh Government, Creative Wales and the Books Council of Wales to save Welsh magazines and websites

  • On County giving up fan ownership

    On County giving up fan ownership

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    Gareth Leaman

    As hard as it is to wade through the doom-mongering and conspiracy theories surrounding all things Newport County, there’s little doubt that the challenges of a Football League club being owned by its supporters are coming to a head. Pre-season has been filled with ominous financial statements, the manager has made no secret of the…

  • If Twitter dies

    If Twitter dies

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    by

    Gareth Leaman

    …it will be for the best. Not just because it’s a chronically addictive abuse sluice that turns all its users into self-important idiots, as the common critique goes, but also because of the incalculable damage it’s caused to the art of writing.  Twitter has transformed the way people write, the way thoughts are articulated and…

  • Fighting Austerity’s ‘New Wave’

    Fighting Austerity’s ‘New Wave’

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    Gareth Leaman

    After the Johnson administration’s cynical conciliation with the ‘Red Wall’, and the punitive overcorrection of the Truss disaster, austerity has once again assumed its central place in British politics. The Tory government warns of ‘difficult decisions’ and ‘spending reductions’1 the Labour front bench stresses the need to be ‘fiscally disciplined’; the press predicts a ‘new wave of…

  • Transphobia and the Break-Up of Britain

    Transphobia and the Break-Up of Britain

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    Gareth Leaman

    It should come as no surprise that the UK’s most visible victimisation of a marginalised group at present – the war on trans rights – should become so intertwined with the fight to suppress secessionist movements in the state’s peripheries.

  • The popularity of the Welsh language

    The popularity of the Welsh language

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    Gareth Leaman

    The Welsh language appears to be very popular these days. Particularly thanks to this year’s World Cup, where the FAW’s adoption of ‘Yma O Hyd’ has helped catapult Cymraeg to a degree of prominence hitherto unforeseen, prompting a curiosity about Welsh culture and history that reaches far beyond this country’s borders.

  • No more princes, no more masters

    No more princes, no more masters

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    by

    Gareth Leaman

    In the days following the death of Elizabeth II, it would appear that Wales is far from immune from the hysteria surrounding the British monarchy’s transition from one figurehead to another.