Okay. Well, it's about three English guys who end up joining the French Foreign Legion because of the disappearance of a diamond, and...well, you know, they march and fight and stuff.

Otter is a total Foreign Legion junkie, no kidding, and is always looking for good movies and books on the subject. And this one is a pip! A TV miniseries made by the BBC in the 1980s, it runs to eight half-hour episodes, and is not only faithful to the book (even though cuts are made, they are judiciously and intelligently made) but also has EXCELLENT period and military detail.

The actors are good, the script is full of charm and humor (Wren was an extremely amusing writer), and this series really does justice to a great story. Oh, and two of my favorite Wren characters, Hank and Buddy, the Americans, are in this as well, and they are just a treat to watch.

The down side? it's only available from England, which means that you not only have to get it from Amazon.co.uk but if you don't have an all regions* dvd player, you won't be able to watch it.

But you could come on over and join us on the couch. We'd love to see it again.

*DVDs are coded to different world regions:

1. United States of America, Canada
2. Europe, including France, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Arabia, Japan and South Africa
3. Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo and Indonesia
4. Australia and New Zealand, Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America
5. India, Africa, Russia and former USSR countries
6. Peoples Republic of China
7. Unused
8. Airlines/Cruise Ships
9. Uncoded

   If you live in the US, the dvd players you buy are set to play region 1 dvds only. If you try to play a dvd of another region, it won't work. You can buy players that have been reprogrammed to play all regions (we have one of those, they're not expensive) or you can sometimes buy 'region free' dvds. But unless you know one of those two conditions exist, you can only play dvds from your region on your dvd player.

   Most computers will play dvds of all regions...but will only switch regions a certain number of times. Every time you put a different kind of dvd in, it's one switch. When you run out, your computer will only show dvds from the last region you played, when you used up your last switch.