We Popped Out To Fascino,

it is a large pharmacy on Pattaya Tai,

 just pass the market and opposite the temple complex, 

 now here is something you do not see every day, well you might see it every other day, the no parking law being strictly enforced, to help congestion you can park on alternate sides of the street on odd or even days, and looking at this it seems to be working, not a parked bike or pick-up truck in sight,

 arriving back I decided to play cactus, so a couple of plant pots were cut to stop the soil from falling through he drainage holes,

 next a layer of gravel, followed by a topping of gravel mixed with some soil,

 let the planting begin,

 these are all what I call 'stinky cactus', we bought these the last time we we were in Bangkok, some of the display plants had flowers on then which were so unusual we just had to buy a collection of small plants,

to give them their more common name, collectively they are known as starfish cacti, or are morbidly called the carrion flower, this is because as they flower they give off a smell like 2 week old putrid road-kill, or so I have read, but also some members of the group give off a much sweeter smell, not unlike chocolate, the purpose of the odour is to attract insects, you may think that the plants are insectivorous attracting insects like they do when they flower, but the insects are used by the plant as pollinators, not for food, hopefully in a few years we should see a few flowers, back to potting them, the good news is that they do not have spines like traditional cactus, so this evening no need for the tweezers,

 after our evening meal, The Man In The Iron Mask, a colourful romp through France in the early 1660s when the story was set, great fun and settings, so did the Man in the Iron mask ever exist? have a look here for a glimpse of what may have been, of course it is conjecture, but did the author of the book, Alexandre Dumas, born in Haiti to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman know more about the mystery than we do now? as an aside there is a Alexandre Dumas society if you want to know more about the author, just a thought there are 2 people called Alexandre Dumas at this time, père (father) and  fils (son), this son, one of four became a successful novelist following his fathers footsteps and was also a playwright,

next a complete change of place as we watched Catch Me If You Can, based on a true story we follow Frank Abagnale Jr., aged just 16 with $25 in his checking account he leaves home, a few years later, the FBI track him down in France; he's extradited, tried, and jailed for passing more than $4,000,000 in bad checks, along the way he's posed as a Pan Am pilot, a paediatrician, and an attorney, he's being pursued by a FBI agent, Carl Hanratty, who finally gets his man and according to the after film credits gets Frank to work for the FBI and become their leading cheque/fraud agent, with that we were off to bed.