Pidge, we will get you on a motorcycle, yet, before it's all said and done.

Will look for the DVD. Amazon.co.uk most likely will have it.

Michael, a head's up for you. If you buy from Amazon uk you'll get a dvd in PAL format and won't be able to play it here.

The series is available at Amazon u.s.a. - so you'll save shipping, avoid the hideous exchange rate and be able to actually view it. The series sounds as though it's just your cup of tea, Michael.

Pidge, I'm going to try to persuade netflix to get it, if they haven't already. My brother was telling me about it and it I've been waiting to be able to get it here.

Thanks for telling us about this.

You MIGHT be able to play a dvd on your computer, but probably not. DVDs are electronically coded into Zone 1 (i.e. North America) and Zone 2 (The Rest of The World). It's pure electronic coding, unlike the actually different formats used for VHS. In other words, it's a ploy by the distributors to ensure you buy the full-priced one developed for your region. format is the same, just coded to prevent you from using the other zone stuff. Sometimes a PC will play either version, but it's not guaranteed.

Like Sheila, I've been reading about this and the second one (Long Way Down?) and hearing about it from my sister, so I'm hoping Netflix will have it.

Thanks, Sheila, but I have a player capable of playing European formats. Most of the french films I buy aren't released in North America, so I order them from amazon.fr.

Michael, I know you will love this film. I keep thinking of scenes and they are always either of some grueling task they have to do, or riding with abandon along a rare good road in Eastern Europe, or the myriad scenes of interaction with the people they meet along the way--it's chock full of such pleasures (obviously edited with an excellent eye!). The bikes themselves are BIG BMWs, hard even for one man alone to set upright when they fall over, which they do a lot in the rough terrain and sometimes really bad or even NO roads of Eastern Europe. And they can get hurt, as Charlie does at one point.

The copy I have is actually my daughter's--she is a huge Ewan fan, has watched Trainspotting more times than she can recount--and I'll check with her about where she got it, I think through Amazon, pre-ordered so it would arrive the very minute it was released.

Yesterday she tells me she was watching Long Way Down with one of her friends. She's seen this one more than once, too, and says that while it's terrific, it doesn't have quite the same power as the first one. By this time, both men have learned so much from the first trip that the problem-solving comes easier, for one thing, and for another, Ewan's wife joins them for a part of the trip. This necessarily separates Ewan from Charlie, who now must find his own space and hang with the cameraman. Because a large part of the film deals with the way these two men work and play together as they move through what it literally a life-altering experience, the interruption, says my daughter, skews the rhythm.

One funny thing: Ewan the Scot is always comparing the landscape to Scotland, and at one point claims that Scots invented their piece of the world and everyone else copied it. This doesn't quite work for him in Africa, where Charlie chides him with "Does THIS look like Scotland, Ewan?" Oh well, I guess it's not that funny, but I love Charlie!

I don't think I'll ever be a bike rider, but one of the points of this film is that one doesn't know what one can do until one tries, so I won't say "never"!

Pidge, Thanks for the head's up. Like Sheila, I'll be pestering NetFlix to get this one, if they don't have it already. DVD's have now become my entertainment lifeline now that TV is even a bigger "vast wasteland" thanks to the writers' strike. The lack of a fun Golden Globes ceremony last night (one of my favorite guilty pleasures) left me very grumpy.

I just checked with my daughter and she is "pretty sure" she got the film through Amazon. For those who can't wait, it will be shown on the Fox Reality Channel starting TONIGHT.

Andie, I agree that the Globes were a total bummer. No red carpet, no weepy "I want to thank the gardener" speeches, no seeing Daniel Day Lewis get his statue--boo hoo! They better get this thing settled for the Oscars, is all I can say, or I will be grumpy for a whole year.

Just a side note, but Charlie's Dad is John Boorman, the director of Excalibur, Deliverance, Hope and Glory, The Emerald Forest (which Charlie had a part), and other films of such ilk.

It is available at Amazon here, Pidge.

And NetFlix has it, so it's now in my queue.

We saw this a few months ago, thanks to Netflix. I keep checking for Long Way Down but they still don't have it. It is really good. My favorite parts were how mechanics from anywhere in the world know how to work on these bikes.