O perfil de JonathanLee

It is hard enough to find a good martial arts class in the UK ordinarily, but to find a good Chinese martial art class, in a sea of Japanese, is even more difficult.

Yee’s Hung Ga, is an intense, profesionally taught class that runs three times a week. Hung Ga is an old southern Chinese style that blends both external and internal and is known for its deep stance training. This takes the form of Qigong, a combination of movement and breathing techniques that helps not only in the art but everyday life; and more pratical and applicable self defence.

Each lesson a week focuses on a different aspect of the art but always involves Qigong.The lessons can be physically intense, but all that is to be expected of you is to try your best and train hard.

The cost of lessons is average for martial arts (perhaps below average if you take the quality of teaching into accont) and the first lesson is free.

A profound, expertedly taught martial art that helps you make the most of your body and mind, both in lesson and in the greater context of your life.

An apparently friendly looking cafe that serve good coffee and snacks.

As can be confirmed by the other review, the staff at this cafe seem to be in another world. The quality of that ordered is great, but the staff seem to be on autopilot when it comes to work. Seemingly oblivious to the customers the staff carry on their always loud and often emotional conversations (always in Italian). In fact you are actually happy for the attention recieved if your coffee is slammed aggresively in front of you.
That’s the only time your part of the drama.

This is all part of the fun and unique environment that coincidentally feels a lot more genuine than most cafes. It’s also great to sit outside on a warm summer day.

Recomended.

A smallish but great book shop specialising in social activism and political fiction and non-fiction. The shop manages to avoid feeling pretencious or homogenous but keep its more radical feel, with a great variety of books. There are also some more interesting, unfamiliar titles in different genres.

The interior is, perhaps unexpectedly, fairly neat and tidy with a good browsing atmosphere.

There are also opportunities to attend evening events at Wordpower.

A great bookshop full of interesting titles, that makes a fresh change from the same old high street giants.

A gallery of consistent quality, the Dean houses modern art with a particularly strong collection of surrealist work.

Situated in lovely grounds, opposite the Gallery of Modern Art, there is a surrean but contemplative atmosphere.

The Dean Gallery is great for a morning or afternoon out, especially with its great cafe. Combine this visit with the gallery opposite and you have a recipe for an even better day out of culture and stimulation.

Warhammer games, produced by Citadel Minatures, swamp the war games market. With good reason. The consistent quality, albeit with consistent high prices, of minatures, rules and modelling tools is excellent.

Games Workshops across the country feature similar stock so the quality of each shop tends to be measured by the staff working there and the crowd that hangs around. Fortunetly the Games Workshop in Edinburgh hosts a bunch of friendly, knowledgable and helpful employees with lively and regular customers, eager to meet new generals to go to war with.

Recomended for all war game fans.

The Forest Cafe is probably the best known and most visited alternative spot in Edinburgh.

The place is mostly volunteer run, offering drinks and snacks in a different environment. It acts as a venue for all sorts of performances which vary from day to day, week to week. There also often various projects and experiments running, like the long term book swap or free shop.

First of all let this brilliant idea be comended. An autonomous leaning, participatory based, cooperative led space is what we need more of. Second let it be said that this sort of thing is very hard to pull of in a culture and society encouraged to do the opposite.

However, the Forests negative points have to be noted and too often they are brushed aside in euphoric idealism.

There is no reason why the place couldn’t be more professional. Hair in the food, unclean bathroom and the eternal bewilderment of a health and hygene pass. These things do not hold up the image of alternative projects on the frontline of a movement (if I am correct in saying that it tries to do so).

As a space for ideas and debate you might think that the Forest felt free and open. However, dialogue seems homogenous and oppinion only seems to differ within narrow particulars. Of course this may simply be the product of the similar sorts of people who visit. There is, however, a definite and worrying new-age, anti-intellectual tone to many debates.

Of course being volunteer run means that the same quality cannot be expected as that of other cafe and restaraunts. But it would be expected that certain quality controls would be in operation as the standard of food seems radically inconsistent.

The idea should be praised and respected. However the Forest Cafe needs to improve in certain important areas if it is to be the important radical place it should be.

Comics aren’t a huge market in the UK but what there is is mostly controlled by Forbidden Planet and Forbidden Planet International.

FP not only sells the latest comics and comic collections but manga, DvDs ,models and figures and other geek-culture sort of things. All for extortionate prices. DVDs are often twice the price they are on internet sites like amazon as are the models. When it comes to the individual comic prices you’d be cheaper off going to Deadhead just up the road.

It’s a big shop and it certainly has a lot of stock, but you won’t find quality of service or even helpful advice. In fact the the staff seem to be employed on the basis of their insularity and unwillingness to help the public (in fact they also seem to make it a habit to insult them behind their back which I had the priviledge of witnessing).

The interior is neat and clean with comic posters on the wall but nothing particuarly interesting and no real sense of character.

For the DVDs go online. For the comics go to Deadhead. For the books and graphic novels go next door to Blackwells. All will be cheaper and you’ll find a better service. You might have thought this shop could be the epitome of cool. It isn’t.

Chips is the UK’s largest video game retailer and lives up to it. The shop is nicely furnished and the staff are very friendly and helpful.

The shop sells all the latest Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games aswell as a good selection of titles on older formats. There is also a great selection of second hand games stretching right back into “retro” (SNES anybody?).

Chips also produces its own free magazine with all the recent news on the gaming industy.

The games market is heavily monopolized by GAME and, to a lesser extent, Gamestation. So its nice to see a different face on the highstreet.

A great independent games shop with all the good points of the bigger chain stores but with more character and quirks.

It’s hard for Internet Cafes to stand out these days. Here Internet doesn’t exactly come across as original but its bright, tidy furnished look is welcoming.

The shop provides internet (obviously), aswell as decent coffee and teas.

The location is good, being near Tollcross, and the staff are friendly.

There are many second hand book shops in Edinburgh but it’s surpsing that few people know this one.

Situated on busy South Clerk Street, The Book Shop is run by Bernardos charity.

The shop has an excellent selection of non fiction genres, from philosophy to world history to gardening, aswell as a great variety of fiction and poetry. Look out for the sale bins to pick up great bargins from all genres.

The shop has a tidy, smart look often missing from second hand book shops and the staff are friendly and willing to offer help or advice.

A great book shop to potter away in.