Lockdown listening

Keeping the mind occupied and boredom at bay will be a challenge for all households as the lockdown bites.

The Edinburgh Reporter has picked out a few BBC podcasts which will help while away a few hours. All are available on BBC Sounds or on the BBC website.

The Coronavirus Newscast is a daily offering featuring well esablished BBC journalists Adam Fleming, Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, Fergus Walsh and Chris Mason - the same group who brought us Brexitcast throughout last year with its every twist and turn of the Brexit drama.

Grayson Perry portrait © Katie Hyams

A charge that has been levelled at some of the Covid-19 coverage in newspapers and online is that we should leave coverage of the coronavirus pandemic to health and science correspondents who can bring their expertise to bear on answer-shy politicians. Coronavirus Newscast does feature political journalists but based on the success of Brexitcast it is worth a listen.

The all-time favourite for many has to be Desert Island Discs. Here is the well-established pattern of suggesting to someone who is otherwise quite sane that you are going to cast them away to a desert island. With them they can only take music and a never ending supply of something they cannot live without. At the present time a desert island sounds like the perfect retreat from reality. There are endless episodes here (well 2,251) dating from the days when Roy Plomley first hosted the programme in the 1940s. The