For metal fans using Spotify, the Century Media pull-out is a BIG DEAL. Hundreds of records have disappeared from the service overnight, leaving a gaping hole in its hitherto impressive metal catalogue.  In terms of significance, it’s akin to a hip hop collection without any Def Jam albums or an indie anthology sans Rough Trade. So why would a well-respected independent label like Century decide to pull the plug on the increased visibility and revenue stream that Spotify offers niche artists?

Context

Spotify: ripping off artists?

In an official statement released on Monday, Century Media claimed that the decision to withdraw was taken to protect the interests of its artists.

“While everyone at the label group believes in the ever changing possibilities of new technology and new ways of bringing music to the fans, Century Media is also of the opinion that Spotify in its present shape and form isn’t the way forward…”

“At the same time Century Media also believes that Spotify is a great tool to discover new music and is in the process of reintroducing their bands to Spotify by way of putting up samplers of the artists. This way, fans can still discover the great music released by the label.”

“Physical sales are dropping drastically in all countries where Spotify is active. Artists are depending on their income from selling music and it is our job to support them to do so. Since the artists need to sell their music to continue their creativity, Spotify is a problem for them. This is about survival, nothing less and it is time that fans and consumers realize that for artists it is essential to sell music to keep their heads above water”.

While I’m aware that the relatively low royalty rate Spotify passes to independent labels is something of a sore point within the music industry, I find Century Media’s statement thoroughly objectionable. As one of the aforementioned fans and consumers, and an avid Spotify user, its naivety and myopia is nothing short of astonishing. There’s a real sense that Century is still clinging bravely to the shattered ruin that is the music industry’s traditional business model, despite the fact that the rise of the internet has allowed extreme metal to thrive in a way that was never possible before. Let’s take a more detailed look at some of the myths the Century Media statement attempts to perpetuate.

#1 – Spotify is causing physical album sales to fall

Nobody is going to dispute that CD sales are in steep decline. As the graph below reveals, since hitting a peak in the late 90s, album sales have fallen year on year. It’s also true that revenue from digital downloads has not even come close to making up the difference. Everybody is acutely aware that the traditional model of selling music is all but redundant.

That said, attempting to pin the blame on Spotify is simply ludicrous.  Spotify has been active since late 2008; the seemingly terminal decline in album sales started well over a decade ago. While there does appear to be some correlation between an especially pronounced fall in sales volume in the last three years and the launch of Spotify, let’s remember two important details. Firstly, this period dovetails neatly with the bottom falling out of the world economy. People simply don’t have the same amount of disposable income to blow on records as they did five, eight, ten years ago.

Secondly, while Spotify has been operating for a little under three years, it hasn’t had a simultaneous roll-out in all territories. This is important. It finally arrived in the USA in July after a couple of years of music industry cockblocking but is still unavailable in most European countries. Live in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium or pretty much anywhere in Southern and Eastern Europe and want to use Spotify? Unless you’re savvy enough to run it through a proxy and avoid detection, forget it.

Trying to find any pattern in sales figures from countries where Spotify is available versus those where it isn’t is a futile effort. While German album sales have fallen more slowly than those in the UK, Ireland has seen one of the sharpest declines in Europe; only 2% of all the albums released each year sell over 5,000 copies. If any pattern emerges across the continent, it’s that fewer records are sold in countries that are experiencing severe economic difficulties; less money in pockets equals fewer sales at record store tills. Local market conditions clearly have far more of an impact on sales figures than the presence or absence of Spotify does.

#2 – Spotify is preventing metal musicians from making a living

Like punk rock, metal isn’t a genre where you play for the money. Unless you’re in the top tier of bands with enough crossover appeal to bring in mainstream audiences or one of a very, very lucky few, you aren’t going to be able to make a living from playing extreme metal. This has always been the case; even at its commercial peak in the mid-1990s, the vast majority of performers in the Norwegian black metal scene held down a day job – assuming they weren’t dead or in prison – to make ends meet. Nocturno Culto of Darkthrone was, and still is, a primary school teacher, while Emperor’s Ihsahn kept himself afloat as a music tutor.

If anything, Spotify has actually opened an additional revenue stream for metal bands. While the genre has suffered at retail as much as the rest of the industry, there remains a very loyal, extremely devoted base of hardcore fans who continue to support their favourite bands by buying physical albums, attending live shows and purchasing merchandise. Many of those fans, including myself, also use Spotify. In June I bought Devin Townsend‘s Deconstruction and Ghost records on CD but also listened to them extensively on Spotify at work and through the Spotify app on my iPad. Thanks to Spotify, Devin – one of my favourite artists – has been paid twice over.

Then there’s piracy. Spotify has actually allowed artists to make some money (albeit on a very small scale) in a situation where sales were never likely going to happen in the first place. Century Media have fallen into same the trap as everyone from movie studios to video game publishers by assuming that a pirated copy of an album/movie/game is equivalent to a lost sale and that its associated monetary value represents lost revenue. This is preposterous; the overwhelming majority of pirates were never going to buy the record in the first place. Instead, Spotify offers users a legitimate way of listening to music for free (ad-supported) or for a relatively small fee (a Spotify Premium subscription) with royalties trickling down to bands on independent labels. However meager the sums of money involved, it’s a damn sight more than the artists see from outright piracy.

#3 – The internet has damaged independent record labels and niche artists

I don’t think anybody is going to deny that the internet has completely cannibalised the financial base of the majors but I’d argue that it has opened up opportunities for independent labels and niche artists that simply never existed until the dawn of the online age. Metal in particular has enjoyed an explosion in popularity and while it’s still very much a specialist interest, the internet has allowed thousands, if not millions, of new fans to discover groundbreaking artists that would have otherwise slipped under the radar. The never-ending stream of new bands, the rise of new sub-genres like Djent and the continued growth of the live scene owes much and more to the emergence of the online space.

Extreme metal has always suffered from a visibility problem but the internet has allowed the genre to grow, even while it has been increasingly marginalized at retail. As record stores – including large chains - have struggled to stay afloat, they’ve reduced the back catalogue stock they carry and gradually squeezed out niche artists, replacing them on shelves with cut-price DVDs, t-shirts and perma-discounted albums from artists on the majors. In short, unless you live in a major city it’s virtually impossible to find metal records from labels like Peaceville, Nuclear Blast, Southern Lord, Hydrahead and, yes, Century Media on shop shelves. Yet despite this, more people than ever before seem to be listening to extreme metal.

While I don’t have the figures to back it up, I’d argue that the revenue pie  has grown in recent years from a combination of records sales, merch and gigs. If Century feels that individual bands are finding it harder to make ends meet, that’s most likely down to the fact that more artists than ever before are competing for their piece of that pie, which can only be for the greater good, on a creative level at least.

Century are quite right to say that Spotify is a great tool to discover new artists but taking their back catalogue away and replacing it with a piecemeal selection of “sample tracks” isn’t the way forward either. Give people the ability to play their favourite tracks, recommend them to friends and share them in playlists so that extreme metal artists will continue to benefit from the increased exposure that only online word-of-mouth can bring.

Final Thoughts

Spotify’s response to Century Media has been interesting, as has that of the metal community (I’m planning to put together a Storify piece on this that I may retroactively embed in this post). The statement released by Spotify correctly points out that the service has helped to monetise an audience who were previously pirating music wholesale and that countries where Spotify is available saw an average 43% growth in digital sales versus 9.3% in neighbouring countries without Spotify. According to Billboard, Spotify is now the second largest single digital revenue source for European record labels, of which Century is one. This suggests that even if Spotify does result in an acceleration in the decline of physical sales, it’s offset by growth in the digital downloads sector.

As far as the blogger reaction goes, I’m very much with Vince Neilstein of Metalsucks on this one. I think Century Media have made a poor judgement call on this and are clinging to the shell of the music industry as it was. But those days are over. Rather than burying their head in the sand, Century should be looking at ways to open new revenue streams online and Spotify is just one of a variety of ways to do that. Withdrawing from Spotify only serves to push potential customers back towards piracy and make it less likely that they will buy physical CDs from Century Media, or indeed anybody else.

In the immediate wake of Century Media pulling out of Spotify, I toyed with the idea of cancelling my Premium subscription, which I’ve been happily paying for the better part of a year. After a little reflection and putting my thoughts in order when writing this post, I’ve decided to keep giving Spotify my £10 a month. Why? Several reasons. Firstly, Spotify helps provide niche artists with an alternative revenue stream to the decaying physical sales business model. Secondly, it allows me to share my favourite artists with both friends and strangers through public and playlists. Finally, Spotify is simply a fantastic service that is incredibly cheap considering how much it offers in return for your monthly subscription fee.

Ultimately, I’m not going to let Century Media or anybody else bully me about the way I listen to my music.

The first is a piece on Essential Student iPhone Apps for The Skinny’s Student Handbook 2010 and covers eight indispensable applications for those studying in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The second is a short article on threats to Net Neutrality in the US for the Digital section of the main magazine. This is a theme I plan to revisit soon in light of recent developments in the UK.

There was also another piece on using social media to stay in touch while at university but that doesn’t seem to have made it to the main site.

The upshot? Less time spent typing in the search field and waiting for a SERP to load, allowing you to find the pages you’re looking for that bit faster. Two to five seconds faster, if the Big G’s estimates are to be believed.

Naturally, any innovation in search moves the goal posts a little for the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) industry but many commentators have already seized on Google Instant as a big game changer, with some going as far as to say that it could kill SEO altogether. Google itself is more reserved and has stated that rankings will remain the same, though user behaviour may change.

With only 14 or 15 hours since Google Instant went live, it’s far too early to start predicting the imminent demise of SEO. While I agree that there are challenges ahead for the industry – not being able to track the keyword permutations that led to users to the final search term before moving to their end page in analytics software is the biggie – the fact is that Instant may not change quite as much as we think.

For one thing, a surprisingly large number of people won’t use instant search at all. Like millions of other internet users, I use my browser’s quick search field to take me straight to a SERP rather than going through the intermediary of the Google search page. I’ve been doing it for years and keyboard shortcutting to quick search has long since become second nature. Google Instant won’t change that kind of ingrained behaviour. It will allow me to fine-tune my search terms when I get to that SERP but beyond that, it’s not likely to revolutionise my search experience. For millions of people like me, the tradtional(ish) SERP will continue to be the hub of my search activity.

But what about those who will use Google Instant as their main search interface? Won’t they gravitate to the first automatically-generated key phrases Google identifies for their query? My belief is that,  in time, they won’t. Instant goes some way to breaking down the barriers between the user and the underlying technology, making the search process more transparent and intuitive. As users become accustomed to Google Instant, they will gain insight on how the system works and begin to ‘get a feel for it’.

Even novice searchers will recognise that generic keywords are not an efficient or effective way to get anything but the most broad range of results and will be encouraged to try longer tail terms by the responsive and intuitive search interface. Instant itself encourages this behaviour with basic positive reinforcement feedback – as your search terms become targeted, it ‘rewards’ you with a list of more tightly focused and relevant keywords. The on-the-fly results stream puts an end to the inconvenience of waiting for multiple SERPs to load, removing another barrier between users and good search practice.

And, as an added bonus, if Google’s goal of allowing users to spend less time typing and more reading results, there could be an additional benefits for those in the SEO industry, particularly those of us who believe in taking an ethical, content-driven to search rankings. With more time devoted to reading results rather than focusing on getting the search term right first time, well-written titles, carefully-crafted page descriptions should take on an extra layer of significance for search engine user.

It will be probably be a few weeks before we really know what changes Google Instant is going to bring to standard SEO practice but as things stand at the moment, it looks like Google is trying to empower its users, giving them more control over the search process. For those of us interested in generating meaningful search results with genuine value to the end user, this can only be a good thing.

Over the next few weeks we’re going to examine in detail how journalists (and bloggers, who without a big media brand name to fall back on are usually even more reliant on search engines to deliver traffic to their websites) can optimise their work to improve search engine rankings using simple, easy to follow steps. We’ll begin by working our way through a standard news article or blogpost, starting with the title and headline and gradually making our way down to the meta information your readers will never see. On the way we’ll take a look at how to make the most of your article’s web address, how to optimise your copy using keywords and how to correctly add links and spread the word about your content using strictly ethical means.

Just one quick word of warning before we plunge into our first topic – contrary to popular belief and the sworn testimony of thousands of quack ‘SEO Gurus’ around the world, Search Engine Optimisation is not a magic bullet solution. It does not guarantee an enormous increase in the number of hits your site receives or first page rankings on Google search. In fact, if performed incorrectly, it can actually reduce your site’s traffic or stop readers from finding your content altogether. With a little care, though, it can improve your chances of achieving highly placed rankings for carefully selected keywords and phrases which will ultimately produce tangible results.

Introduction

In this first article, we’ll be starting at the top of your post and examining how to write your headline, set your Page Title and correctly use headings for maximum possible search engine exposure. No knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP or any other web development language is required to follow this guide, though those with a grasp of the basics may find it easier to come to grips with the underlying principles of SEO. Below you’ll find a screenshot of a webpage containing a news article with each page element we’re going to discuss highlighted and labelled. Feel free to refer back to the screenshot if you feel lost at any point.

We will begin by discussing the first thing your readers will see when they click through to your article: The Headline.

Headlines

If the art of the headline writing is truly dying out, good SEO practice may well be the root cause. There’s no doubt that an expertly crafted headline still has the ability to amuse and engage but when it comes to writing with high search engine rankings in mind, utility wins out over a clever pun every time. “Up Yours, Delors” might have elicited a few xenophobic chuckles back in 1984 but in 2010 “Thatcher Set to Snub Delors Over Single Currency” or “Prime Minister Fundamentally Opposed to Federal Europe” will yield considerably better results from Google, Bing et al.

When writing headlines for your online news articles or blog posts, try to extract the key people, places, events and concepts from your copy – these will be the terms search engine users will most likely type into the search field –  and use them as the building blocks for a short and snappy sentence. Where possible, use simple, straightforward nouns rather than adjectives and unusual phrasings and avoid jargon – more people will search for “Paris Bomb Blast” than “Parisian Incendiary Explosion” and a headline containing the former will likely be placed more highly on Google’s results than one with the latter.  We’ll cover keywords in much more detail in the third article in this series when we looking at body text and SEO copywriting.

Title Tags

While we’re discussing headline titles, it’s worth considering Title Tags. In lay-person’s terms, a Title Tag is simply the text that displays in the title bar of your web browser when viewing a webpage – in this case, your article. The Title Tag is of critical importance because it’s the first thing the user sees after a search engine pulls up a page of results. A concise, informative title that summarises your article in one sentence is much more likely to be clicked on than an entry with a vague, muddled headline.

For those comfortable working with HTML, a title can be set using the <title> and </title> HTML tags but fortunately, most Content Management Systems (CMSs) automatically generate a title based on your headline and many allow the writer to edit it further. It’s usually best to edit the Title Tag yourself if the option is available to ensure that you’ve included enough relevant keywords from your body copy – after all, house style might limit your headline to just a few words but allow you a little more freedom with the page title. It’s worth remembering, however, that most search engines only register the first 60 characters of a Title Tag to prevent insalubrious keyword stuffing, so keep it fairly succinct.

Bloggers may want to consider using one the many SEO plugins available for the most popular blogging platforms to gain access to all title editing features. All-in-One SEO or SEO Ultimate are both excellent choices for WordPress.

Heading Tags

Before we wrap up our discussion of headlines, lets take a look at enclosing them in Heading Tags. Headlines (and sub-headings, which we’ll come to next) are usually denoted as such in your text by putting them on a separate line and in a larger font, or by making them appear in bold or underlined. Just as text formatting draws the reader’s eye to a headline, clearly marking it as a separate entity from the main body copy, Heading Tags tell search engines that the text within is more important, in terms of navigation and structure at least, than what comes after.

All good CMSs will allow you to apply appropriate heading tags to the various headings in your copy. When manipulating HTML, this is just a matter of enclosing the text in <h*> and </h*> tags – <h1> and </h1> in the case of main headlines. Those not proficient with markup should ensure that they actually use their CMS’s text editor to properly style text as a headling rather than simply formatting it in bold and manipulating the font size. Only text in tags will be recognised properly by search engines (and by your browser, for that matter).

While many CMSs automatically create a <h1> tag based on your post’s title, bloggers using popular blogging platforms like WordPress and Google’s Blogger may find that they need to create a separate headline at the top of their posts themselves. Whether or not this is necessary is entirely down to the theme your blog uses; some web designers have constructed their templates to automatically populate the <h1> tag while others have not. The best way to find out if your blog generates its own tagged headline is to view Page Source (Ctrl+U) and search the code for a <h1> tag. If it’s there and contains either your post title or a line of code that retrieves the title for you, all is well. If not, you’ll want to add one to your posts manually.

More on Headings

It is possible to modify WordPress and Blogger themes to populate the headline tag automatically but unfortunately this requires getting your hands dirty with some basic HTML and PHP and that you host your own blog, rather than using WordPress/Blogger.com hosting. Those who find manually applying headline tags to their blog posts extremely arduous might want to consider looking around for a stock template that supports the function automatically.

It’s also important to remember that when dealing with <h1> tags, only one should be used per post, so if your template does generate one on its own, under no circumstances create a second. While your blog likely won’t be penalised severely by search engines for having two <h1> tags, it’s best practice to keep it to just one and to use that tag for the post headline and nothing else.

A final – and somewhat confusing – point about heading tags. Exact tag usage varies from one website to another and while the system detailed above is the most common, used by the BBC, Guardian and Daily Mail news sites, there are other variations out there. CNN, for example, use <title> for the page title, <h1> as a container for the site logo and <h2> for the main headline (more on this tag in a moment). It’s usually best to check with your editor or tech team what the site’s headline convention is before getting started. If you’re a blogger and are managing your own website, you probably won’t need to worry about this much.

Subheadings

Correctly marking up your subheadings is also very important, not only for making your article easier to navigate for your readers but for drawing a search engine’s attention to important subsections of the text.  All of the same rules you used when writing your headline also apply to crafting subheadings; keep it brief, use keywords that crop up in your text and avoid the temptation to sacrifice clarity and utility for the sake of a delicious pun. You’ll also need to apply heading tags to ensure that search engines recognise sub-headings, although unfortunately in this case there’s no chance of the CMS looking after it for you automatically.

When tagging your subheadings, you’ll be applying styles like Heading 2, Heading 3 etc, all the way down to Heading 6 (where Heading 1, as your main headline, is the most important, and Heading 6 the least). In HTML these styles represent the <h2> to <h6> tags and these enclose your sub-headings in exactly the same way as the <h1> tag contained your headline. As a general rule, you should structure your sub-headings hierarchically, Heading 2/<h2> for your main sub-headings, Heading 3/<h3> for sub-headings nested under those and Heading 4/<h4> for sub-headings of Heading 3 and so on. It’s unlikely you’ll ever make it down to Heading 6 in an article or blog post but if you do, the rules remain the same. Unlike <h1> tags, you are encouraged to make use of multiple <h2> etc tags to clearly denote your subsections and, indeed, its best practice to do so..

See the diagram above for a more visual demonstration of this principle.

Checklist

Correctly writing headlines and subheadings, setting a suitable Page Title and applying heading tags to your text where appropriate are some of the most fundamental techniques for optimising your articles or blog posts for search engines. They are straightforward tasks that can be performed by anyone reasonably familiar with a WYSIWYG text editor; if you’ve managed to publish a blog post in the past you’ll certainly have no trouble in assimilating them into your posting routine. I’ve created creating a step-by-step SEO checklist to help you ensure that all necessary SEO tasks have been performed before you publish your article. As the series goes on, I’ll gradually add more steps to the list as we discuss different aspects of the SEO process.

1. Is your Headline written in an SEO-friendly style and enclosed in a <h1> tag somewhere on the page?
2. Is your Page Title written in an SEO-friendly style and enclosed in a <title> tag or entered into a Page Title field?
3. Are your Subheadings written in an SEO-friendly style and enclosed in the appropriate heading tag?

Final Thoughts

While Search Engine Optimisation is a valuable skill and something all journalists and bloggers should be avid evangelists of, let’s spare a moment’s thought for the fine art of headline writing. There’s a belief that good SEO practice is killing the ancient tradition of pun-based headlines and while there’s some truth in this, it’s simply not the case that writing with search engine results in mind always comes down to sacrificing creativity for utility. There remain plenty of opportunities for wordplay in excerpts, straplines and picture captions, where they remain easily visible to readers without diluting your content’s indexing potential. Headline writers are a resilient bunch and no matter how powerful search algorithms become, there will always be room for both witty double-entendres and mind-numbingly awful puns in the digital world.

Further Reading

Econsultancy – A Journalist’s Guide to SEO

Wordstream – SEO Title Tag Formulas: How To Create High Performance Title Tags

SEO Book – How to Craft Kick-Ass Headline Tags and Titles

The Guardian – Search for the Perfect Headline

In Part 2, we’ll be looking at Permalink Structures and URLs and discovering how you can use a page’s web address to maximise your content’s SEO potential.

In spite of his criminal activities, there’s something imminently likeable about Howard Marks. He’s humble and self-deprecating, and unexpectedly blunt about the unpleasant realities of a life spent skirting the edges of the underworld. And while Mr Nice revels in the mythos Marks has built up around himself, it’s also a surprisingly human film, depicting both the highs and lows of an extraordinary life on the fringes of society.

Rhys Ifans pours his heart into the role of Howard Marks, from early years spent in Welsh coal-mining town to an unlikely scholarship at Oxford and his indoctrination into a world of drugs and debauchery. After a brief sojourn as a teacher, Marks soon abandons any pretence of cleaning up his act when circumstance leads to him trafficking a carload of cannabis from Germany to Britain in the early 1970s.

He soon encounters Jim McCann, a rogue member of the IRA, who helps Marks smuggle high grade hashish into the UK. McCann, played by David Thewlis, is intense and upredictable, a darkly comic contrast to the effortlessly cool Marks. Within a matter of months, the two men are the masterminds behind one of the world’s most prolific drug rings and begin to attract unwanted attention.

While Ifans as Marks and Thewlis as McCann are indisputably the star attractions, director Bernard Rose leaves his own stylistic fingerprints on the film. Rose uses film aspect and texture as shorthand for particular periods or decades and to mark the passage of time. The mid-1960s are denoted by black and white footage, shot in 4:3 aspect ratio, while the 1970s are characterised by strong, saturated colours and orange-tinged celluloid. It’s a refreshing alternative to the scores of title cards that would otherwise clutter the screen.

Howard Marks

It’s unfortunate that Rose doesn’t apply the same care and attention to the morality of Howard Mark’s involvement in the drugs trade. Though the Welshman claims never to have dealt in hard drugs or to have resorted to violence, it’s difficult not to believe that the audience is witnessing a sanitised and distorted version of reality.

While there are certainly human and personal costs to be paid when Marks runs afoul of the law, we see little of the real violence, poverty or exploitation that underscores the global cannabis trade. That Howard Marks himself views Mr Nice as a strong campaigning tool in the fight for the legalisation of marajuana is surely telling in itself and does little to detract from the sense that Rose is happy to perpetuate and enhance the Marks legend rather than tackle the questions his story raises.

Self-indulgent moral ambiguity aside however, at its best Mr Nice is thoroughly engrossing, a gripping drama liberally laced with visual and situational humour. Mr Nice won’t go on general release in British cinemas until October but there’s a strong chance it could emerge as a cult classic in years to come, alongside Withnail and I, Trainspotting, Human Traffic and other commentaries on drug culture in these islands.

Watch the trailer for Mr Nice on Youtube.

Images courtesy of EIFF.

Special events range from spectacular gala evenings for high-profile films, including The Illusionist and a 3D screening of Toy Story 3, to After the Wave, a retrospective look at the “lost and forgotten” years of British cinema from 1967 to 1979.

Meanwhile, Sir Patrick Stewart discusses his work as a Shakespearean actor, a Star Trek captain and more besides at a special BAFTA Scotland interview on Monday 21 June and The Dunwich Horror, based on the work of HP Lovecraft, promises a uniquely terrifying ‘No-D’ experience. In contrast to the 3D visual feasts of Avatar et al, The Dunwich Horror is an audio-only experience taking place in a darkened cinema and guaranteed to scare you out of your wits.

Elsewhere, Sir Sean Connery’s 80^th birthday is celebrated with a special screening of The Man Who Would Be King, from 1975, and various creative workshops and panel discussions dissect the art of film-making.

After feasting on the clips on show at this morning’s press launch and having perused the 2010 Edinburgh International Film Festival brochure, I’ve selected my top five movies to watch out for this year.

The Illusionist

An animated spectacle set in the Capital itself, The Illusionist is the perfect movie to kick-start the Edinburgh International Film Festival at the Opening Night Gala on Wednesday 16 June. Described as “a love letter to Scotland and Edinburgh in particular”, the film follows the titular illusionist as he moves from Paris to Scotland in search of work, trying to convince all around him of his magical abilities. Directed by Sylvain Chomet, of Belleville Rendez-vous fame, The Illusionist maintains its own distinctive visual style, while drawing on the beauty, life and elegance of the director’s previous work.

Jackboots on Whitehall

Billed as Britain’s answer to Team America: World Police, Jackboots on Whitehall is an irreverent, animated alternate history of World War II, that depicts the nightmare scenario of a German invasion of Britain in the 1940s. An entirely stop-motion endeavour, the film is also strongly reminiscent of  Wallace & Gromit and its associated spin-offs. Winston Churchill flees northwards to Scotland, where the lawless Highlands serve as the only refuge from the oncoming Nazi armies. With an all-star voice cast including Ewan McGregor, Richard E. Grant and Timothy Spall, Jackboots on Whitehall combines the best of British cinema talent with beautiful animation and a script so sharp it could cut itself.

Restrepo

Restrepo, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger’s docu-drama set in the midst of the ongoing Afghan conflict, is perhaps one of the most intimate and unflinching accounts of how modern warfare is conducted ever committed to celluloid. Granted unprecedented access to US armed forces, the filmmakers spent 15 months embedded in the 173^rd Airborne Brigade, recording shockingly powerful images of the human cost of the war. Restrepo promises to be the definitive Afghan war movie and, in time, may even rank amongst the genre greats.

Mr Nice

Making its European premiere at the Film Festival, Mr Nice documents the rise and fall of the infamous international drug smuggler Howard Marks. Based on Marks’ own autobiography, this biopic stars Rhys Ifans and chronicles the heady days of the 1970s and 80s when Marks was rumoured to control over 10% of the global cannabis trade and was under constant threat from the law, fellow smugglers and the IRA.  Just as charming and mischievous as its titular anti-hero, Mr Nice is leading the charge of superb British films at this year’s EIFF.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is the latest project by celebrated German director, Werner Herzog, combining drama, psychological horror and deadpan black comedy to make a gripping and unsettling film. Lead character Brad has locked himself inside his house after stabbing his mother to death. The narration jumps between the murder scene and the outside world, as police painstakingly uncover the chain of events that lead Brad to such a dark place. Willem Dafoe stars alongside Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny and Udo Kier.

This year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival runs from 16 – 27 June at various locations across Edinburgh, including the Festival Theatre and the Filmhouse, Cameo and Cineworld cinemas. For more details and to book tickets, see the EIFF’s website.

Data has been sourced from VoteThemOut while address details for constituency offices, used in the postcode search, came from Westminster Parliamentary Record.

The final total out of the 59 Scottish MPs was 18 For, 5 Against and 36 Absents. Here follows a constituency-by-constituency breakdown for each MP. Keep reading after the list for analysis and a party-by-party breakdown.

Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire

Aberdeen North

Frank Doran (Labour) – For

Aberdeen South

Anne Begg (Labour) – Absent

Banff and Buchan

Alex Salmond (SNP) – Absent

Gordon

Malcolm Bruce (Lib Dem) – Absent

West Aberdeen and Kincardineshire

Robert Smith (Lib Dem) – Absent

Angus and Dundee City

Angus

Mike Weir (SNP) – Absent

Dundee East

Stewart Hosie (SNP) – For

Dundee West

James McGovern (Labour) – Absent

Argyll and Bute

Argyll and Bute

Alan Reid (Lib Dem) – Absent

City of Edinburgh

Edinburgh East

Gavin Strang (Labour) – For

Edinburgh North and Leith

Mark Lazarowicz (Labour) – Against

Edinburgh South

Nigel Griffiths (Labour) – Absent

Edinburgh South West

Alistair Darling (Labour) – Absent

Edinburgh West

John Barrett (Lib Dem) – Against

Clackmannanshire and Perth and Kinross

Ochil and South Perthshire

Gordon Banks (Labour) – Absent

Perth and North Perthshire

Pete Wishart (SNP) – Absent

Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish Borders and South Lanarkshire

Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk

Michael Moore (Lib Dem) – Absent

Dumfries and Galloway

Russell Brown (Labour) – Absent

Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale

David Mundell (Conservative) – Absent

East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow

Adam Ingram (Labour) – For

Lanark and Hamilton East

Jimmy Hood (Labour) – Absent

Rutherglen and Hamilton West

Toomy McAvoy (Labour) – For

East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire

Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock

Sandra Osborne (Labour) – For

Central Ayrshire

Brian Donohoe (Labour) – Absent

Kilmarnock and Loudon

Des Browne (Labour) – For

North Ayrshire and Arran

Katy Clark (Labour) – Absent

East Dumbartonshire and North Lanarkshire

Airdrie and Shotts

John Reid (Labour) – For

Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill

Tom Clarke (Labour) – Absent

Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East

Rosemary McKenna (Labour) – Absent

East Dumbartonshire

Jo Swinson (Lib Dem) – Absent

Motherwell and Wishaw

Frank Roy (Labour)  – Absent

East Lothian

East Lothian

Anne Moffat (Labour) – Absent

East Renfrewshire

East Renfrewshire

Jim Murphy (Labour) – Absent

Falkirk and West Lothian

Falkirk

Eric Joyce (Labour) – Against

Linlithgow and East Falkirk

Michael Connarty (Labour) – For

Livingston

Jim Devine (Labour) – Absent

Fife

Dunfermline and West Fife

Willie Rennie (Lib Dem) – Absent

Glenrothes

Lindsay Roy (Labour) – Absent

Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath

Gordon Brown (Labour) – Absent

North East Fife

Menzies Campbell (Lib Dem) – Absent

Glasgow City

Glasgow Central

Mohammed Sarwar (Labour) – Absent

Glasgow East

John Mason (SNP) – Absent

Glasgow North

Anne McKechin (Labour) – For

Glasgow North East

Willie Bain (Speaker) – For

Glasgow North West

John Robertson (Labour) – For

Glasgow South

Tom Harris (Labour) – Absent

Glasgow South West

Ian Davidson (Labour) – For

Highland

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross

John Thurso (Lib Dem) – Against

Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey

Danny Alexander (Lib Dem) – Absent

Ross, Skye and Lochaber

Charles Kennedy (Lib Dem) – Absent

Inverclyde

Inverclyde

David Cairns (Labour) – For

Midlothian

Midlothian

David Hamilton (Labour) – For

Moray

Moray

Angus Robertson (SNP) – Absent

Na h-Eileanan Siar (Western Isles)

Na h-Eileanan Siar

Angus MacNeil (SNP) – Absent

Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands

Orkney and Shetland

Alistair Carmichael (Lib Dem) – Against

Renfrewshire

Paisley and Renfrewshire North

Jim Sheriden (Labour) – For

Paisley and Renfrewshire South

Douglas Alexander (Labour) – For

Stirling

Stirling

Anne McGuire (Labour) – Absent

West Dumbartonshire

West Dumbartonshire

John McFall (Labour) – For

Analysis

Labour

• 17 Labour MPs voted For the DE Bill.
• 2 Labour MPs voted Against the DE Bill
• 20 Labour MPs were Absent or Abstained.

Only two Labour MPs – Mark Lazarowicz and Eric Joyce – broke the whip to vote against the Bill. There were also many high-profile Labour absentees including Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, with the likes of John Reid shoring up the For vote. Still, more than half of the party’s MPs stayed at home despite the presence of the whip and government’s determination to drive the Bill through.

Liberal Democrats

• 0 Lib Dem MPs voted For the DE Bill
• 3 Lib Dem MPs voted Against the DE Bill
• 9 Lib Dem MPs were Absent or Abstained.

No Lib Dem MP voted in favour of the Bill, but only three turned out to vote it down, despite the party being firmly against the proposed legislation. More big name absentees here with Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell staying at home. Bizarrely, the MPs for the far-flung Caithness, Sutherland and East Ross and Orkney and Shetland managed to make the vote, while many of their southerly colleagues were absent.

Scottish National Party

• 1 SNP MP voted For the DE Bill
• 0 SNP MPs voted Against the DE Bill
• 6 SNP MPs were Absent or Abstained.

Yet another high-profile absentee here with Alex Salmond nowhere to be seen, though he is stepping down from his Westminster seat to concentrate on his duties as First Minister of Scotland after the forthcoming election. Pete Wishart was surprisingly absent after robustly engaging with the debate during the Bill’s Second Reading the previous evening.

Conservatives

• 0 Conservative MPs voted For the DE Bill
• 0 Conservative MPs voted Against the DE Bill
• 1 Conservative MP was Absent or Abstained.

The Conservative Party’s only Scottish MP fails to turn up for the vote. I bet his constituents are thrilled.

In total, far less than half of Scotland’s MPs – a pitiful 38% – bothered to turn up and vote on the Digital Economy Bill.

Update: to find out if and how your MP voted on the DE Bill, see VoteThemOut.

The final tally was 189 votes For the Bill and 47 Against. The Againsts break down by party as:

• 23 Labour
• 16 Liberal Democrat
• 5 Conservative
• 3 Other
• 2 plus two Lib Dem tellers.

The names of those who voted against are as follows:

Abbott, Ms Diane (Lab)
Amess, Mr. David (Con)
Barrett, John (Lib Dem)
Beith, rh Sir Alan (Lib Dem)
Breed, Mr. Colin (Lib Dem)
Burgon, Colin (Lab)
Burstow, Mr. Paul (Lib Dem)
Carmichael, Mr. Alistair (Lib Dem)
Cash, Mr. William (Con)
Challen, Colin (Lab)
Chope, Mr. Christopher (Con)
Corbyn, Jeremy (Lab)
Davey, Mr. Edward (Lib Dem)
Davies, Mr. Dai (Ind)
Davis, rh Mr. David (Con)
Dismore, Mr. Andrew (Lab)
Drew, Mr. David (Lab)
Fallon, Mr. Michael (Con)
Featherstone, Lynne (Lib Dem)
Foster, Mr. Don (Lib Dem)
Gerrard, Mr. Neil (Lab)
Grogan, Mr. John (Lab)
Hancock, Mr. Mike (Lib Dem)
Harris, Dr. Evan (Lib Dem)
Hoey, Kate (Lab)
Howarth, David (Lib Dem)
Howarth, rh Mr. George
Hughes, Simon (Lib Dem)
Jones, Lynne (Lab)
Joyce, Eric (Lab)
Keetch, Mr. Paul (Lib Dem)
Kilfoyle, Mr. Peter (Lab)
Lazarowicz, Mark (Lab)
Love, Mr. Andrew (Lab)
Marshall-Andrews, Mr. Robert (Lab)
Mitchell, Mr. Austin (Lab)
Öpik, Lembit (Lib Dem)
Paisley, rh Rev. Ian (DUP)
Palmer, Dr. Nick (Lab)
Price, Adam (Plaid)
Reed, Mr. Andy (Lab)
Russell, Bob (Lib Dem)
Simpson, Alan (Lab)
Thurso, John (Lib Dem)
Todd, Mr. Mark (Lab)
Truswell, Mr. Paul (Lab)
Watson, Mr. Tom (Lab)

Tellers for the Noes:
John Hemming (Lib Dem)
Mr. John Leech (Lib Dem)

My own MP, Mark Lazarowicz of Labour, is highlighted. In my correspondence with him over the Bill, he pledged to vote down the more controversial measures and I am pleased to see that the strength of his convictions stretched to voting against the final Bill. Other Edinburgh residents may also be interested to know that John Barrett MP (Lib Dem, Edinburgh West) also voted against the DE Bill. The other three Edinburgh MPs, Alistair Darling, Nigel Griffiths and Gavin Strang (all Labour) either voted in favour of the Bill or were absent.

Update 11/04/2010: Nigel Griffiths (Labour, Edinburgh South) and Alistair Darling (Labour, Edinburgh South West) were absent and did not vote on the Digital Economy Bill. Gavin Strang (Labour, Edinburgh East) voted in favour of the Bill.

Update 12/04/2010: Mark Lazarowicz has blogged about his opposition towards the Digital Economy Bill and its implication on future parliamentary sessions.

Previous posts on the Digital Economy Bill:

Take the fight against the Digital Economy Bill to your MP

Digital Economy Bill: Second Reading

Three weeks on and the Bill is currently being given its second hearing in the Commons, the last step before the “Wash Up” period which could see it fast-tracked into law as the parties cut last-minute deals with each other before the General Election. This was the scene in parliament about half an hour ago:

Note that there are only sixteen MPs in the chamber. From a total of 646. That’s less than 2.5% of our elected representatives who bothered to turn out to debate one of the most important pieces of legislation in many years, one that is vital to Britain’s Digital future. You don’t need me to tell you how wrong that is.

Then there’s the fact that the Digital Economy Bill was scheduled for a debate on a day when it was extremely likely that an election would be called and Parliament dissolved. This is exactly what happened today, and the media’s attention has been captivated by the first volleys in the electoral mudslinging contest. Even the usually reliable Guardian have failed to liveblog the DE debate. Perhaps I’m overly cynical but as Jo Moore once infamously said, “Today is a good day to bury bad news“.

We’ve also been subjected to MPs exposing their ignorance of the core issues of the DE Bill debate. From Austin Mitchell calling heavy internet users and technical types ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’ to Simon Sion’s utterly bizarre Star Wars metaphor, where illegal downloaders are Luke Skywalker and Peter Mandelson is Darth Vader, it is abundantly clear that the government needs to bring in experts from across the full range of digital professions – and not just music industry representatives -  to hammer out a measured, forward-thinking Bill rather than a legislative knee-jerk.

I’m disappointed, if not entirely surprised, that my own MP, Mark Lazarowicz of Labour for Edinburgh North and Leith, isn’t one of those in the chamber today. Mark responded to my concerns about the DE Bill back in March, reassuring me that the possibility of it being taken into the Wash Up period was extremely low and that nothing undemocratic would be allowed to happen. I was initially impressed at both the swiftness and apparent sincerity of his replies but believe that if he considered this a genuinely important issue, he would be in the House of Commons today, opposing this Bill. I’m afraid that will be one less vote for you Mr Lazarowicz, and for Labour too.

Update – 6 April 2010, 9pm

Two hours later and we’re down to a paltry ten MPs left in the House of Commons debating. Most of those remaining are Labour MPs, many of whom are speaking out against the Digital Economy Bill. Is there any chance of a backbench revolt over this?

Update – 6 April 2010, 10.30pm

Shortly before 10pm, a large group of MPs rushed into the House of Commons to vote on the Bill, despite not taking part in the debate whatsoever. The DE Bill passed the second reading and will now go on to the third reading and committee stage tomorrow.  How very disappointing.

I don’t doubt for a moment that Apple’s slate will be a masterclass in hardware design; sleek, shiny and immensely covetable. Equally, I’m sure that it will be just as accomplished in the UI and functionality stakes, in so far as it will do exactly what Apple have designed it to do extremely well indeed.

Despite that, I won’t be parting with my money when the iPad eventually finds its way over to Blighty later this month. Here’s why:

1. I’m not an early adopter.

Let’s be clear – I’m a huge fan of new technology and love nothing more than getting to grips with the latest devices. But I usually wait a few months before I actually spend hard-earned cash on a new shiny. There’s the obvious benefit of prices falling after the initial release (less of a factor with an Apple product, naturally) but early models can be less reliable (think how many launch Xbox 360s are still in active service), as well as being being more expensive.

2. It’s the first iteration of the product

Closely linked to the perils of early adoption, it’s inevitable that within the space of a year, a new, more fully-featured version of the iPad will be announced. I was burnt by the original iPhone – I bought one four or five months after release and two months later the 3G was announced at a lower price and with a better feature set. When the basic iPad model comes with 3G and a respectable amount of storage, I’ll be much more likely to take the plunge.

3. It’s a little on the expensive side…

Which brings us to the fact that the iPad is certainly not cheap. We don’t know how much exactly it’s going to cost in the UK just yet but £399 seems a good ball-park estimate. And that’s for the basic 16 GB model, not the significantly more pimped-out 3G-enabled 64GB version. Apple products have always been priced at a premium but when a couple of games consoles, a well-specced laptop or a 37-inch 1080p TV can be picked up for around the same price, it makes me stop to consider if it represents real value for money.

4. It can’t multi-task

Like the iPhone, the iPad only allows one application to be open at a time, the integrated iPod aside. While it does offer some improvements over its smaller cousin, the iPad is still not capable of true multi-tasking. This is the real deal breaker for me. I need to be able to hop from browser to email client to terminal window to e-book instantly and without worrying about having to save my work at each step or waiting for apps to reopen. I’m genuinely baffled as to why the iPad can’t do this.

5. Create vs. consume

I work in media, so I create content almost as often as I consume it. The simple fact is that while the iPad has a limited set of creative functions, it’s really not all that well-suited to the role. A netbook meets my needs as a creator far better; it’s light and portable, has a fully functioning keyboard, far greater storage capacity and full range of applications for my chosen OS. While it lacks the grunt of a fully-fledged notebook or desktop, it provides a perfectly serviceable workstation when needed. As if to prove a point, this blog post was composed entirely on a netbook, including all reference reading and image-editing. I think I’d struggle to put everything together as quickly or easily on an iPad.

The best is yet to come

Let me reiterate that I am entirely convinced that iPad will be a very successful product. I’m also sure that, sooner or later, I will buy one. But now isn’t that time. The iPad’s main function is media consumption and, as a creative, I need a device that can do more, especially at the price Apple are asking. My hope is that by the time iPad 2.0 is announced, the software will have evolved and entirely new possibilities will be opened up, just as the App Store accompanied the launch of the iPhone 3G. Until then, I’m afraid my money will be staying firmly in my wallet – even if the sight of a friend or colleague playing with their shiny new tablet makes me sick with envy.